Summer Psalms - Psalm 3

We've been in this series in Psalms, and if this is your first week with us or perhaps your first week back this year, you've missed kind of a three week introduction. That sounds like a very long introduction. But we spent the first two Sundays in the best known Psalm, maybe the best known passage of scripture in Psalm 23. And then last week we had a special guest, Pastor Alan Davis, who shared with us Psalm 1. And that was an incredibly challenging word which challenges us to plant our lives on God's Word and on his truth for our life and that as we do that, that we will then be fruitful.

And what a great reminder for the start of our year this week. I wanted to just reiterate, you don't have to worry that we're working through all of the Psalms. There is another 148 to go. We're not going to spend the next three years of Sundays in the Psalms, but we are going to look at a handful more that will take us into the first Sunday of next year. So if you've been coming in, sorry, next year, next month.

Oh, there were some people saying, no, that's it, I'm out of here. If you have been looking at that board as you've been coming in, saying, it still says, this is 2024 and it's got all of last year's sermon series, just wait. The planning is happening and that'll be updated in the coming weeks. But what I wanted to do today is I want to start actually with just some basics, some basic truths, some basic things that we know about the Psalms. And so we're going to do that before we get into our passage that we're going to look at today, which is Psalm chapter three.

And before we do that, let's pray as we open God's word, our God. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the rawness and the vulnerability of the Psalms. We thank you for the way that as we open up these poems, these songs that were written, Lord, so many years ago, Father, that they still speak to us. And we know that that's a miraculous work, that's your Holy Spirit.

And so we just pray that you would make us receptive and ready to hear from you today. Jesus name, Amen. So I've got up on the screen some dot points for you and we're going to start really basic today. Now, if you're thinking this is really, really basic, don't worry, it will get a little bit more complex as we work our way into the term. I mean, not much more complex, I'll be honest, but a little bit more than this.

But let's start with the basics. What we know about the Psalms. Firstly, they're poetic. So you probably know that the Bible is a combination of 66 books written by 40 authors inspired by the Holy Spirit. And across those 66 books, we've got all different literary styles.

Now, if I'm sounding like an English teacher, too bad. If this is giving you bad memories from your days at school, I'm sorry, but there are different literary forms. And so we have books of history, we've got books of prophecy, we have books of narrative that tell the story of Jesus, for example, but we've also got books of poetry. And then just to confuse you more, we've got some books that float between, that have combinations of those things. But it is important to recognize that as we open the Psalms, that these are poems, they're songs that are written by these songwriters, written as prayers and poems to God.

And that should shape then how we read them and how we interpret them. So it's important to know that, secondly, because they're poetic, they use poetic techniques. And you might have recognized some of these. We know that metaphors are used a lot in the Psalms, where they talk about a truth or an emotion or something. They're experiencing their lives, and they paint this picture of something temporal, something we see to represent that.

So, for example, we often see the themes or the ideas of chaos and turmoil and suffering being written and described as like raging rivers or raging waters to represent that we saw in Psalm 23. And we talked about this in the first two weeks, the shepherd and the sheep talking about God and us. And so they use these poetic techniques. But the other thing, other than metaphors that we see is we see repetition. So if you're ever reading the Psalms and you read a line and you think, sure, he's already said that.

Like, why is he saying the same thing multiple times? Repetition is a poetic technique, but it's also a common technique in the Hebrew literature. And so they would use repetition to really reiterate that this is something I'm feeling strongly or an important idea. And so we see repetition used. We see a couple of different types of psalms.

And you've probably seen these. Some of them are psalms of prophecy. Praise, where the psalmist is hopeful, is filled with wonder about how great and mighty God is. But we also see psalms of lament. Now, lament is not used commonly today, but these psalms of lament are psalms that talk about the sorrow and the pain and the grief of the psalmist's circumstances, whether it's theirs individually or whether it's the story of their people.

And so we see these Psalms of lament. Fourth, we see that Psalms are both prophetic and they're also deeply rooted in the psalmist circumstances. And it's an incredible thing that we see this prophetic insight, that they look ahead to a Messiah, to a Savior, and we read of that. Or we also though, see that they're deeply connected to the experiences of the psalmist. They are pouring out to God their real life struggles, the things that they're facing.

And I find that really encouraging. There's a rawness and a vulnerability that we see in the Psalms. And lastly, they're written from a place of deep emotion. And so we see that across the Psalms, and we'll see that again today. But they talk about these deep emotions and they're crying out to God in many of them.

And we often think about emotional awareness as like a modern sign of a modern sophisticated life. You know, being emotionally in tune, being emotionally intelligent. You know, if you do a Google search, you'll see thousands of assessments of how you can test about your eq, how emotionally aware you are. But the Psalms actually show us that emotional enlightenment is not a modern phenomena. It's instead an ancient practice.

And we see it through the Psalms as the psalmist grapple with the troubles and the successes in their lives, we see them pour out deep emotion through the words of these poems. And I think sometimes those deep emotions and what they write have been misunderstood by people who don't understand, maybe the literary form or don't understand from where they're written. And so they've been misunderstood. But also it can make us feel a bit uncomfortable. Sometimes we read things in the Psalms and we think, should that really be in God's word?

Like, should that have been allowed to creep in? Surely someone should have picked that up and got rid of it. And we'll see an example of that today in Psalm 3 as well. But I want to draw a key distinction here because in our modern world, we talk about emotions and we kind of put forward that our emotions are valid above all else, that the way we feel about something should be followed without restraint. We're led to believe that, that our emotions should be like the guiding force of our lives, that they should be the thing that leads our decision making, that is the key component of our identity.

But the Psalms actually show us something very, very different. They show us that emotions are important and we should seek to understand and express them, but they should be express, expressed and understood within the context of our relationship with God and our knowledge of who he is. So we see the psalmist not just simply follow their emotions, but they bring them before a loving God. They express them before God in a really raw, honest and vulnerable way. They acknowledge how they're feeling about the muck and the mess of life here on earth, but they recognize that God is the ultimate authority in their life.

And that is such an important thing. I see so many people, and particularly Christians, that are guided by their emotions above everything else, that their emotions are the most important and significant thing that controls their life. And that's not what the psalmists show us. They recognise that their emotions should point them towards a place of trusting and relying on God. And so this morning, let's put some of those things into practice.

Let's put them within the context of a psalm. And so let's jump into Psalm 3. If you've got your Bibles there, we're gonna read through the whole psalm and then we'll work through it. So Psalm 3 says this, a psalm of David, regarding the time David fled from his son. Absalom says this.

O Lord, I have so many enemies. So many are against me. So many are saying, God will never rescue him. But you, O Lord, are a shield around me. You are my glory, the one who holds my head high.

I cried to the Lord and he answered me. From his holy mountain I lay down and slept. Yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. I am not afraid of 10,000 enemies who surround me on every side. Arise, O Lord, rescue me, my God.

Slap all my enemies in the face. Shatter the teeth of the wicked. Victory comes from you, oh Lord, May you bless your people. Now, if we started at Psalm 1 and read through to Psalm 3, we'd notice that this is the first time that we actually get this little line of context before we start reading the psalm. And so we read here this heading that is straight from the Hebrew text.

Some of the headings that we find in our Bibles we'll put there later to kind of help organize the text. But this one is in the Hebrew, and it says to us that this is a psalm of David written about the time he fled from his son Absalom. Now, at risk of making you feel like you stepped out of an English lesson into a history lesson, I do want to just really quickly give you this brief rundown of what's happening here. As David pens this Psalm. The time in David's life is recorded for us over in 2 Samuel in chapters 15 to 18.

And I encourage you, maybe you can make a note of that and read that in your Bible reading this week because it will help you to understand fully this psalm. But here, King David has had his own son Absalom, rise up against him and take his throne. And it's a really bitter betrayal. I mean, it sounds bad enough like your own child rising up against you and overthrowing you and running you out of the city. But it's even worse because Absalom had embarked on.

On this long campaign of undermining David. That passage from 2 Samuel tells us that Absalom would go to the city gate each morning, and as people were coming to petition the king, Absalom would be there. And he would say, look, no one from the king can see you bring your complaint to me. And the person would come and complain about whatever grievance they had. And Absalom would say to them, you are right.

You are right to feel aggrieved by that. If only, if only I was appointed a judge over the nation, then I could give you the justice that you receive. And so Absalom, over time, he presented himself as the people's champion. And in doing so, he wins the heart of the people. And so we see then that once he's won the heart of the people, he declares himself king.

And David then discovers that many of his friends and his counselors have turned their backs on him and they side with his son, Absalom. And so David, worried that the conflict will see them killed and that the city will be destroyed, he flees with a loyal few who go with him. So knowing that helps us to understand why he starts this psalm saying, O Lord, I have so many enemies. So many are against me. So many are saying God will never rescue him.

There's this story that happens in Those passages in 2 Samuel that as David and his men flee, this man comes to meet them on the road. And this man is from the house of Saul. And he says to David, God has given the kingdom to Absalom because of your sin, because you're a murderer, because you have blood on your hands, God has turned against you.

And so we see then this emotion that David writes from, he's writing from this emotion of betrayal and grief. But more than this, he writes from a place of fear. He writes from a place of fear as the enemies have surrounded him and as they curse him, he. He's afraid. Charles Spurgeon, the very Famous preacher writes this.

If all the trials which come from heaven, all the temptations which ascend from hell, all the crosses which arise from earth could be mixed and pressed together, they would not make a trial so terrible as that which is contained in this verse. It is the most bitter of all afflictions to. To be led to fear that there is no help for us in God. And perhaps this is David's greatest fear, as he writes, is that what if God has turned his back on me? What if God has turned against me?

What if the people condemning me are correct? But instead of falling into this trap, we see David turn and look at the blessings of God. And this is what he says in verses three to six. But you, O Lord, are a shield around me. You are my glory, the one who holds my head high.

I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me. From his holy mountain I lay down and slept. Yet I woke in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. I'm not afraid of 10,000 enemies who surround me on every side. I love what David says here because he says that, you know, people are out to get me.

But in verse three. Did you see that? He starts verse three with, but he talks about the reality that he's facing, but he filters it through what he knows about God. And he says, but you, O Lord, are a shield. Love what he says.

Not just in front of me, not just beside me, but you're a shield around me. You're a shield around me. Now, I was reflecting as I was reading it this week, what is the posture of someone who's fearful? Someone who's fearful is hunched over. They're timid, their eyes are darting around.

They're often looking at the ground. But David's posture says, God, you're a shield around me.

David knew as a warrior what it was to have a shield. And it was essential to have a shield in battle. And he says that in my battle, God is a shield around me. Not that I'm not in the fight. I'm in the fight.

My enemies are still there. They're still attacking me. But in God, I have found full and complete protection. And then he says this, that you, God, are my glory. David didn't just know about battles, he knew about glory.

He'd been plucked from obscurity. He'd been put into the palace. He was king. He had people look up to him because of his position of power and wealth and strength. But with all of that stripped away, what does he say?

He says, God, you are my glory. You are the one who picks me up and lifts my head high. And then he says, I cried out to the Lord, I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his Holy Spirit mountain. Now, it's easy to skip over and just think that that's just, you know, some kind of point of irrelevant, you know, it's just a nice saying, but it's not at all, because we know that David had been run out of the city. And if you know anything about the geography of the area, the city of Jerusalem was on a hill.

And so he says, as I look to the hill, it's why we have psalms called psalms of ascent. It's what the. The Jewish pilgrims would sing as they walked. But he says, absalom might have forced me out, but he can't force God out of his rightful place. He might have forced me out, but he can't actually knock God off his throne.

He can't take God's place. And then he says this remarkable thing, because in a time where exhaustion, fear, you would think that sleep was impossible. But David says, because of the Lord, I slept. I slept. And not only did God enable me to sleep, I woke up again.

He sustained me for a new day. I wasn't killed in my sleep, but God in his goodness, he not only enabled me to rest, but he's the source of my life. He woke me up the next day. And then he finishes with these verses. It says, arise, O Lord.

Rescue me, my God. Slap all my enemies in the face. Shatter the teeth of the wicked. Victory comes from you, O Lord. May you bless your people.

Now, I'm going to talk about the slapping and the teeth breaking in just a moment, all right? We'll talk about that in a moment. But David calls for God to rise up. And the word that's used here, it's a Hebrew military term, it speaks of going forward into battle, of going forward into battle. So David's saying, God is not just my defence, but he is my victory.

And he'd seen this before. He'd seen God defend him, but he'd also seen God give him the victory. And that's what gives him confidence that God will do it again. And David uses two images here to show God's complete power over his enemies. He says, slap them in the face, break their teeth.

And that's one of those bits of the psalms where we go, how is that in God's word? Like, how did we not edit that out? How did we make it fit? Feel a bit, you know, read a bit nicer you know, if you put that in a work email, you'd be in big trouble. Like you might have felt like.

That's why, you know, they always say, you know, write the email at night, sleep on it, redo it the next day. But we have it there because psalms are people's prayers to God. And so sometimes they contain the rawness and vulnerability of hurting people who are bringing their hurt before a loving God. And that's what we have here. But more than that, we also see it's this poetic device.

It's talking about the complete defeat of his enemies, that not just the enemies would run away with their tails between their legs and plot for another day, but that God would protect him. Not just so that he would spend his days hiding in a cave, hiding from these enemies, but that God would defeat them, that his enemies would be humiliated, that God would restore him to his rightful position.

And so then David finishes with this prophetic proclamation that victory is found in God. He can't see it yet in the physical, but he knows it to be true because he knows about his God. And it's true for him there. But it's also true for us today. And some translations, maybe in the Bible you've got today, it might use the word, salvation comes from God alone.

You see, God has defeated the enemy of his people, and that defeat is the consequences of our sinfulness. And God has defeated it so that the victory or salvation has and will come through him. And so David is looking at his moment there, that context that he's writing within, but he's also looking ahead, knowing that the ultimate victory comes from God, that God would save his people, that he would restore them to their rightful place, that he would come and rescue them.

And so this morning, as we reflect on this psalm, maybe the Holy Spirit has already prompted something in you as we've read it together. But David paints for us this really clear picture of a grappling with fear, of grappling with fear, of uncertainty and of betrayal. And maybe that fear is something that has been in your life. Maybe it's something you're experiencing now or something you've experienced in the past. And so often the fears in our lives end up becoming, just taking a life of their own, that we get to the point where we actually don't know what we're afraid about, but we're just used to living on edge.

And this psalm paints for us four steps that we can take out of fear today. Four steps that when we know them, believe them and apply them, that we can step out of fear into the place where God wants us to be. Now I've given you. I was feeling very creative this week. I've given you four Rs.

Four Rs. So, number one, rest in God's refuge. Rest in God's refuge. You see, David's circumstances were completely overwhelming. It would have been fair for him to run off to some far off place and say, God, I don't want the throne anymore.

God, I don't want the call of being king anymore. God, I didn't sign up for this. Or God, why would you do this to me? I've served you and now I turn around and my son has overthrown me and my people want me dead. But David doesn't do that.

Instead, in the midst of this horrible, overwhelming circumstance, he looks to God. And in the midst of it, he experiences God as his shield.

And that offer is available to him and it's just as available to you today that you too can know that whatever you are facing, that you invited to take refuge in God and that you can rest in that knowing that he offers us this peace that comes to us not just in times where things have come, but a peace that comes in times of chaos. So number one, rest in God's refuge. Number two, remember God's sovereignty. I think we struggle with this a lot and we've talked about it this morning, about how we kind of position our emotions and our feelings above everything else. But David chose to remember in a time where I wouldn't have blamed him if he forgot it, but he chose to remember that God is still on his throne.

That Absalom might have run him off, but he hadn't run off God, that God's authority was still unshaken. And I think some of us need to remind ourselves of that today because God is still on his throne. I see a lot of fearful Christians and a lot of Christians who are afraid of circumstances or they're afraid even of governments or politics or policies or bosses and things like that. And I'm not saying that that doesn't present a challenge for us. But let's remind ourselves like David did, that God is still on his throne.

That no matter what happens in our personal circumstances, that God's sovereignty is unchangeable. Number three, rejoice in God's rescue. David's knowledge that God would rescue him wasn't based on some kind of wish or hope. It wasn't based on anything other than his experience of God's faithfulness. So even though the odds were Stacked against him.

David could sleep peacefully because he knew that God was watching over him. And that type of trust is really hard. It is so much easier that when enemies surround us or our problems seem overwhelming, to focus in on them and not remember God's faithfulness, to not remember that God has been faithful before and so he's going to be faithful again. And that's what David reminded himself of, that God was present, that he was faithful, and that he would rescue him. And fourth, rely on God's victory.

You know, so often I'm a person who likes action. I like to be doing things. And what that means is that, you know, I like to be fixing problems. And so when problems come, they're just an opportunity to work even harder to make them solved, to make them resolved. But David and perhaps you and me certainly at times reach a point where our own strength is just simply not enough.

And when the fight is too big, when the challenges are too great, when your personal struggles, or maybe relationship challenges, or maybe it's even a battle with a particular sin, we are called to declare, just as David did. Victory comes from the Lord, not from myself, not from my own ability or my own striving. But victory comes from the Lord to rely that he has defeated the ultimate enemy. He's defeated sin and death. And so whatever you're facing today, we can stand firm in knowing that the victory belongs to God, that you don't have to make it happen yourself, but he has secured it for you.

And we can look ahead in this eager anticipation to a time that's coming, when we'll be free from the challenges of when we'll be free from the enemies of this world. And what an incredible reminder that is this morning that victory comes from the Lord. You know, one of the things that I was reflecting on this week and I was going to include it at the start, but then I put it at the end. It's a very simple idea that what we see in the Psalms, even the Psalms of Lament, where things are going wrong, is that biblical faith is forward looking. And I think so often when we're surrounded by our problems, we start to look down, or we look at our problems, or we look back in worry and concern.

But we see this model throughout Scripture that biblical faith is forward looking. And it looks ahead beyond our problems to the cross, and it looks ahead to the triumphal return of Christ, looks ahead to a new heaven and a new earth, where sickness and grief and fear is gone. And what an incredible thing if we could this year just have a little portion more of our faith looking forward that would make such a profound difference in our life. Why don't we pray and ask that God would help us do that? Our God, we thank youk for your word, Lord, we thank youk for David and the way that he writes this psalm, that he challenges us to look beyond our troubles, to lift our head and to know that yout are still on youn throne.

And so God, we ask that this week and this year, even that as fear creeps into our lives, Lord, that we would remember, Father, that you are victorious, that our refuge is found in you, that you are still on your throne and that you bring our victory, Lord, would you help us to do that? Would you help us to lift up our eyes out of our wounds, worries, out of the crisis and the chaos and entrust it to you knowing that it's important to you? God, it was important to you enough that it's included in your word that David pours out his heart to you, Lord, that you don't just tell us to ignore those things, but you say, bring them to me and trust that I am good and I love you and I, and I'm sovereign. And so God, we bring those things to you this morning, those doubts, those worries, that fear, the grief. We bring it to you and we rest in you.

We pray that you would help us this year to be forward looking in our faith, that you'd help us to trust in you more that in doing so that you'd give us this vision of the victory that is found in you. So we ask you this in your precious Son's name. Amen.