Good morning.
My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
If you are new or visiting with us, welcome.
We're glad that you're here.
And we're glad that you're here not because we are trying to fill seats,
but because we are following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we've become convinced that there's no one so good that they don't need God's grace,
and no one so bad that they can't have it.
Which means that when we come to look at God's word, which is what we're about to do,
we're convinced that God has something to say to everyone.
He has something to say to people who have been Christians their entire lives.
He has something to say to people who have been Christians for a short amount of time,
and maybe even people who would not consider themselves Christians,
who have doubts and questions and objections about Christianity.
God speaks to all of those things in his word, and so that's why we come to it together.
If you have been with us, you know that we're going through the book of Psalms,
and I've been telling you a variety of things about the book of Psalms.
One of the things I've told you every time is that it's the hymn book and the prayer book of the people of God in the Old Testament,
and so it was a guide for how to worship God,
and it's continued to be used by people in the New Testament because, of course, it's still relevant and helpful for us,
as everything in the Old Testament is.
And I've also told you it's hard to talk about the Psalms because there's not just one thing that I could say that would sum it all up.
It would be as if you took out a hymnal and said,
I want you to summarize this hymnal for me.
Well, it's full of songs, right?
And those songs talk about all sorts of different things.
And so what I'm going to do each week is tell you something,
a different kind of angle or facet of the diamond of the Psalms.
So last week I told you that the Psalms are poetry, and as poetry they make complicated things simple.
And that's what we looked at with Psalm 2.
To understand another element of the Psalms, I'm going to tell you a story.
So many of you know that I grew up on the East Coast right outside Washington, D.C.,
and I happened to be born to a mother who had a passion and a love for art history and art appreciation.
In fact, she loved art history and art appreciation so much, I'm going to brag on her a little bit,
that she was recruited at one point.
I grew up right outside Washington, D.C.
She was recruited at one point to be a docent for the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C.,
to be a volunteer who's trained over several years that would give tours and explain to people
the complexities and the love and the joy that comes from looking at famous artworks.
Now, it didn't work out at that time.
It wasn't the right time in our lives, and so that ultimately didn't happen.
But the point is that I went many, many times to the art gallery, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly.
I have good memories.
I also have memories of having some meltdowns, times where I'd been looking at paintings for too long.
But it gave me a love and an appreciation and an eye as well to kind of walk into various art museums
and have some idea of what I'm looking at and what's going on.
And if you're someone who loves art and you know about art galleries, you know that when you go in,
there are some art galleries that are more important than others.
And you can tell the caliber of an art gallery by the value and the caliber of the paintings in it.
So if you're in an art gallery and there's a Leonardo da Vinci, you know this is a serious art gallery.
And size matters as well.
So in the National Gallery in D.C., they only have a small Leonardo da Vinci.
But if you go to the art museum in Paris, they have the Mona Lisa.
And so there's different gradations of value and relevance.
Now, if you don't know a lot about art but you know just a little bit,
you're probably familiar with a lot of Impressionist painters.
And there's one painter you'll probably recognize, and that's Monet.
Monet.
And Monet is famous for covering the same theme over and over again.
He's famous for painting water lilies in different shades and different colors.
In fact, it's estimated there are about 250 different paintings of water lilies.
He also decided at one point that he was going to paint this one specific cathedral in France,
and there are about 30 paintings of that cathedral.
Different times of day, different shades, different variations.
And if you go to a new art gallery, you're going to want to make sure you see the hits.
So when I moved to St. Louis, Missouri for seminary, there's a St. Louis art gallery, and it's free.
So, of course, I went multiple times, being trained well by my mother.
And in it, there's a Monet.
And you know what I didn't think?
I didn't think, man, I've seen the water lilies before.
That's so boring.
I'm going to make sure I don't visit that room in the art gallery.
No, I'm at the art gallery.
I want to see the highlights.
I want to see the greatest parts of the collection.
And the Monet in the St. Louis art gallery is almost 14 feet long.
And so, of course, that's one of the things I'm going to make sure I see over and over again.
And if I go to any other art gallery that I've never been to before,
I'm going to make sure I go and I look at the Monet.
Even if it's water lilies that I've seen before.
And so, no one in their right mind would say, I've seen this before.
I know this.
I'm just bored by it.
There's nothing new for me to see.
In fact, it's the repetition that partially makes this fascinating.
People will work to bring these collections together
so that you can look at this same cathedral over and over in different variations of different shades.
And so, I tell you this long story to say this.
The Psalms, if we want to understand them,
we have to know that they're a lot like paintings by Monet.
They will focus on the same themes over and over again,
but with different shades and different colors.
And so, one of those themes that we're going to see,
in fact, the theme, the shade that shows up more than any other,
the water lilies, if you will, of the Psalms are the Psalms of Lament.
And these are the Psalms that help us understand
how it is that we can have hope in the midst of difficulty.
What do we do when we see life's challenges and difficulties?
What do we do when we're in situations that feel overwhelming?
We looked at the big picture of the Psalms in Psalm 1 and 2.
Psalm 2, we saw the King is going to come back.
He's going to make everything right.
And yet, we're still waiting.
And everything is not right yet.
And so, as the Psalms give us Psalms of Lament over and over,
as they repeat these Psalms over and over,
they remind us of the importance of repetition,
that the Bible does not exist for us to simply extract
some kind of abstract theological truth,
but it's meant for us to live in it.
It's meant for us to come to it over and over again.
It's what we talked about in Psalm 1,
that there's a model that we run our hands along over and over
that we could learn it.
God is not as interested in efficiency as we are.
God is not an American.
And so, he gives us the same themes over and over.
He forces us to see them over and over because that's the way that we learn.
It's a slow process.
The Psalms sort of model the Christian life for us.
So, Psalm 1 and 2, we see the introduction.
Psalm 150, we see the end.
It ends in praise.
And everything between is all the agonies and joys of the Christian life.
And many of those are joys, but also many of them are agonies.
And so, that's why God provides us over and over again, Psalms of lament.
Psalms where the psalmist cries out and says,
this is the situation I'm in.
It feels overwhelming, and I need your help.
And it's interesting because we have the introduction in Psalm 1 and 2,
and the very first prayer in the Psalms,
because Psalms 1 and 2 are not prayers,
the first prayer is Psalm 3, which we're about to come to.
The very first prayer,
after we've been reminded that there are two ways to live,
and after we've been taught that the King is going to come back
and make everything right,
the first prayer is a prayer of lament.
Not a prayer of victory from Psalm 2,
but a prayer of crying out to God.
And so, it's with that that we're going to turn to Psalm 3.
You can follow along with me.
It's printed in your worship guide near the end.
You can follow along in your Bibles,
or you can also follow along on your phones.
But I would ask that you read with me,
because this is God's Word.
And God tells us that His Word is a lamp to our feet,
and a light to our path.
In other words, God has not left us alone to stumble in the dark,
but instead, He's given us His Word to show us the way to go.
And so, because of that, we're going to read now,
starting at verse 1.
O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me.
Many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for Him in God.
Verse 3.
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory and the lifter of my head.
I cried aloud to the Lord,
and He answered me from His holy hill.
Verse 5.
I lay down and slept.
I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.
Verse 7.
Arise, O Lord.
Save me, O my God.
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek.
You break the teeth of the wicked.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Your blessing be on your people.
Please pray with me as we come to this portion of God's Word.
Dear Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your Word,
that You've given it to us.
That You know that we face challenging
and sometimes overwhelming situations in this life.
that as we're surprised by it, You're not.
And You have packed our bags.
You've given us what we need
to face those things when they come.
We ask that You would help us this morning,
that You would help us to understand
and see
and to believe and trust
everything that You've written for us in this psalm.
And we ask these things
in the name of our King, Jesus.
Amen.
When we talked about Psalm 2,
the psalm that comes before this,
I mentioned that this is a psalm that,
first of all,
talks about King David.
So it looks forward to Jesus,
but it is first about King David.
That's what the people of the Old Testament would have known.
He was the model king, the great king.
And there's a superscript to Psalm 3
that tells us that this comes from an event
in King David's life.
He was the greatest king of Israel.
He was the model that's pointed to
throughout the Old Testament
as a man after God's own heart.
And yet he was not a man without sin.
And he was not a man without difficulty and challenges.
And this psalm tells us that it comes
at a very specific time in David's life.
So David had periods of success
at the very beginning of his time as a king.
He was able to bring all of Israel under his control.
But there was a later time in his life
when he faced many troubles.
Now these troubles, if you're familiar with the story,
know, you know that they start with his affair with Bathsheba.
And it was at that point that things in his family
start to turn south.
And there comes one point where things get so bad
that David's son,
and this is in 2 Samuel chapters 15 and 16,
if you're interested in reading the story later,
David's son, who's named Absalom,
decides that he's going to revolt
and rebel against David.
And so he builds this coalition around him
of people who are going to join him.
He tells them his grievances against David.
He builds a group slowly by complaining
and talking about how good his kingship is going to be.
And then ultimately he revolts.
And so David has to, as the king of Israel,
leave his own city.
He has to flee from Jerusalem.
He's fleeing from Jerusalem for his life
with just a few people.
And rather than praising him when they see him,
people in other places curse him.
And so while David has been familiar with being chased,
remember before he was king,
Saul spent plenty of time chasing him.
It's now after so much victory
that he faces this great challenge,
not from some enemy from another country,
not from a political rival,
but from his own son.
And it's with that that he writes Psalm 3,
this Psalm of Lament.
If you were with us in December,
you know we looked at another Psalm of Lament.
We looked at Psalm 13,
and the flavor, the timbre,
the color of that psalm was slightly different.
That was a psalm for when we feel
that God has forgotten us and abandoned us.
And this psalm, Psalm 3,
it's not a psalm for when we feel like
God has abandoned us or forgotten us.
He doesn't say how long, O Lord,
like he does in Psalm 13.
But instead, it's a psalm
for an overwhelming situation,
where the psalmist knows
that he desperately needs God's intervention.
And so this psalm answers for us,
how do we function in an emergency?
How do we function when life's circumstances
are overwhelming
and seem to surround us from every side?
David tells us that he has many foes
that are rising against him.
And in verse 6,
thousands of people have surrounded him.
Psalm 2 tells us that God's going to deliver.
Psalm 3, we still wait for that deliverance.
Now, I just want to name up front,
most of us,
hopefully all of us,
do not have a son who's trying to kill us.
And most and many of the Israelites
who sang this song over and over again
in the Old Testament
did not have a son trying to kill them.
At the same time,
many Israelites,
God's people in the Old Testament,
and many Christians,
God's people in the New Testament,
have come to this psalm over and over again
for help and wisdom.
Even if we do not have a son trying to kill us,
God has given us this psalm as a guide
to help us know how to walk
when we face those kinds of situations.
And so,
one of the ways that we use the psalms
is we use them as templates.
This is a general prayer
that we can apply to specific situations.
It's a general prayer
that we use when we face situations,
maybe not as severe as David faced,
but situations that are overwhelming
where we feel under attack.
Maybe we're specifically under attack.
This is the kind of prayer that we could use.
Maybe you're a Christian of the early reign,
Christian Covenant Church in China,
and you're under attack.
Your leaders are being put in prison.
Maybe you've been accused
of something falsely at work,
and you're afraid you might lose your job
over something that's not true.
Maybe someone's brought
a frivolous lawsuit against you,
and you know that it's going to waste
enormous amounts of your time and your money.
Maybe you've been deployed overseas,
and someone is actually trying to kill you,
like David faces here.
Maybe you're like David,
and you have a family member
who is actively trying to destroy you.
Maybe it's not in your family.
Maybe outside of your family,
you have a personality
who has it out for you.
They long to see your end.
We can pray this prayer specifically
when we face situations
that we're under attack.
It's general enough, though,
if you follow along,
that we can apply it
to any situation
where we need faith
in the midst of overwhelming circumstances.
So maybe someone isn't attacking you.
Maybe you don't have enough money
to pay your bills.
And you look at Psalm 2,
and you say the king's coming back
to make everything right,
and yet that's not
what I'm experiencing right now.
Maybe you do have enough money
to pay your bills,
and you realize that doesn't matter
because the problems that you face
can't be solved with money.
Maybe your job situation
is getting worse and worse,
and you can't seem to find a way out.
Maybe you don't have a job,
and it feels like nothing
that you do is working.
Maybe no one in your family
is trying to destroy you,
but the needs that you are facing
are overwhelming.
The needs of your relatives,
the needs of your children,
it feels like the world
is closing in on you.
People inside of the church
and people outside of the church
face overwhelming circumstances.
And those of us
who are inside of the church
and those of us
who are outside of the church
have ways of dealing
with those circumstances,
and even for those of us
in the church,
often our way of dealing with them
has nothing to do with God.
And so this psalm,
Psalm 3,
is going to give us a template.
It's going to help us understand
how it is that we walk.
What do we do
if we want to have faith
and trust in God
in the midst of overwhelming circumstances?
First, we see in verses 1 and 2,
the psalmist just lays it out.
He just talks about
what is going on.
Oh Lord, how many are my foes?
Many are rising against me.
Many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for him in God.
He is honest about
bringing the situation to God.
And the psalms remind us
that God knows
that there are times
we're going to face circumstances
that feel very overwhelming.
God's not surprised by that.
He's not alarmed by that.
He's so aware of it
that he has given us psalms
for when those situations come.
God also knows
that there are times
when people will believe
that our faith in him is foolish.
That's what we see in verse 2.
Many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for him in God.
And perhaps, if we're honest,
at times we are tempted
to believe that our faith in God
is foolish.
And yet the psalmist refuses
fear on the one hand
and self-reliance on the other.
And instead,
he comes to God
in overwhelming circumstances.
And so what do we do
when we're facing
overwhelming circumstances
and we want
to face them with faith in God?
The first thing is simple.
We just come to God.
We don't stop talking.
We start talking.
We tell God
the situation that we're in.
We don't shut down,
but instead we talk to him.
We tell him
what's on our hearts,
what's going on in our lives.
Now this may sound too simple.
Right?
We're facing,
David's facing someone
trying to kill him.
Maybe you're facing someone
trying to destroy you
and the pastor has just told you.
The first thing I want you to do
is just tell God
what's going on.
Maybe you think,
that is so little
compared to the challenges
that I'm facing.
It has almost nothing
to do with what I need
to get done.
And if that's what you're thinking,
I want you to think about this.
This sounds too simple.
I recently spoke
with a friend of mine
and this friend
is currently actively involved
in a recovery program
for an addiction
that he's been facing.
And as I talked to him,
he was sharing
some of the things
that he's been learning
in this program
and one of the most profound
insights for him
was he said,
this is what's been
most helpful for me
is that I've learned
that the opposite
of addiction
is not sobriety.
The opposite of addiction
is connection.
The opposite of addiction
is not sobriety.
The opposite of addiction
is connection.
Now don't hear
what I'm not saying.
I'm not saying
if you struggle
with a serious addiction,
it's going to be solved
simply and easily
by beginning to pray.
What I am saying
is this.
When we live life
apart from our connection
with God,
it will show up
in our lives.
When we live life
apart from our connection
with God,
it will show up
in our lives.
We were not meant
to live lives
apart from God
and when we try,
we will have consequences
for it.
Maybe it's an addiction.
Maybe it's that we
numb ourselves
in that way.
Maybe it's something
that other people
find attractive.
Maybe we're extremely
competent,
we're extremely competent
because we know
how to control
and manage situations
and people
rather than trust God.
Maybe it's that
we've learned
to be stingy
and hoard resources
so that we'll never be
without the help
that we think
that we need.
Maybe it's controlling
people rather than
loving them.
Maybe it's scrolling
through image
after image
on social media,
not even thinking
or realizing
the images
that we're looking
through because
it's a way
to turn off
our minds.
The opposite
of addiction
is connection
and God
is telling us
here in his word
that when we face
these things
that feel like
they're too big
for us,
the first thing
he wants us
to do is come
and talk to him
to tell him
what it is
that's going on.
Verse 1,
O Lord,
how many are my foes?
Many are rising
against me.
And so we start
by talking to God.
Thankfully,
that's not where
we stop.
Verses 3 through 6
take us to the next step.
Not only do we begin
our conversation
with God,
but we have to
remind ourselves
over and over again
of what is true
about God
and his character
and also what's true
about his faithfulness
to us in the past.
So verse 3,
the psalmist
reminds himself
what's true
about God.
God is a shield.
God's the one
who protects him.
It's not his military
ability or power.
It's not his financial
resources.
That's his shield,
but it's God.
God's also the glory
and the lifter
of his head.
God is the one
who gives him victory.
God's the one
where he finds
his dignity
and his purpose
and his meaning.
So he reminds himself
of the truth
about God.
That what's true
about God
is more true
than his circumstances.
Second,
he lists the ways
that God has been
faithful to him
in the past.
We go back in time
in verses 4 and 5.
I cried aloud
to the Lord
and he answered me
from his holy hill.
In other words,
I have been in bad
situations before.
And if you know
the story of David,
you know he certainly has.
And when I was in
those bad situations,
you know who came
and helped me?
It was God
who came and helped me.
God showed up.
Verse 5,
I lay down and slept.
I awoke again
for the Lord
sustained me.
In other words,
there have been times
in the past
where without God
and his strength
and his help,
I would have been
sleepless.
Another way to think
about this
outside of the category
of addiction
would be to think
about it in sleeplessness.
What keeps you up
at night?
And if something
keeps you up at night,
what do you do
to go to sleep?
Maybe you don't.
Maybe you stay up
working through the night.
Maybe you're like
some friends of mine,
the only way
that you know
to fall asleep
is to smoke a bowl.
Maybe the only way
that you know
to fall asleep
is to congratulate
yourselves
for the ways
that you've succeeded
in the past
and to numb yourself
to the pain
of what you're facing.
The psalmist here,
though,
lays down and sleeps
for the Lord
sustained him.
In other words,
he's able to fall asleep
because he's reminding
himself of who God is
and what God has done
for him.
And therefore,
verse 6,
I will not be afraid
of many thousands
of people who have
set themselves against me
all around.
many of you know
that I was
out of town last week
and part of the week
I was in Lake George
with some friends
of mine from seminary.
We spent time together
to reconnect
and share our joys
and our heartbreaks
and also to pray
for each other
and have fun
with each other.
And one of the things
that we did
was we cooked together.
So we put together
a meal schedule
and each person
was responsible
for a meal.
and one of my friends
was responsible
for breakfast one morning
so he made French toast
and he decided
we were also going
to have whipped cream
with this French toast.
So we made up
this fancy whipped cream.
We put in,
you know,
vanilla extract
and some other things in it
but it wasn't already
whipped for us
and so he was sitting
there at the kitchen
just whipping over
and over and over.
If you know anything
about whipped cream,
it's easy to buy,
it's hard to make, right?
And if you want to make it,
you have to have
this diligence
and this persistence
moving back and forth
over and over
and over again.
Now,
I helped him a few times.
I offered that I would
be happy to jump in
and do a little whipping
for him.
I didn't want to do that
too much though
because I really wanted him
to be able to use his gifts.
So I let him do
most of the whipping.
But if you know anything
about whipping cream,
if you've ever done it,
you know that it is long
and excruciating
and hard.
And if you want
hard peaks,
you have to whip it
over and over again.
If we want
to have the hard peaks
of faith
and confidence
and trust
in God
in the midst
of trials,
then we have to
over and over again
remind ourselves
of who God is
and what he has done
for us in the past.
faith and hope
and confidence
in God
are not things
that happen magically.
They're things
that God gives to us
by his grace,
but he's given us
ways that we grow.
We call these
the means of grace.
So one of the reasons
that there are so many
water lilies
in the book of Psalms,
one of the reasons
we have so many
Psalms of lament
is that God wants us
over and over again
to remember
and retell
and recount
what he has done
in the past.
There are many Psalms
where the psalmist
talks about
the things
that God has done.
If we want
to face trials
with fate
in our lives,
then we have to
sit down
as families
and talk about
the ways
that God has delivered
us in the past.
We have to meditate
on the ways
God's provided
for us
in the past.
We have to remind
ourselves of Psalm 2
that God
is the great king.
And it's as we do
that over
and over again
that God
builds the kind
of faith
and hope
and trust
that we need
to be
verse 5 people.
People who are able
to lay down
and sleep
and then wake up
again because
God sustains them.
It's by remembering
God's faithfulness
over and over
and over again
that we get
the hard peaks
of trust
and hope.
And so it's Christians
are people of the past
who are always remembering
what God has done
for us.
We can look back
as a church
as we face
trials
and see what God
has done,
how he's provided
for us in the past,
how he's been faithful
to this congregation.
We can look back
as families.
And most importantly,
we look back
as a people of God
around the world.
We look back
to God's faithfulness
to the church
throughout history.
And most of all,
we look back
to God's great act
of faithfulness,
his faithfulness
to us
through Jesus.
While it's encouraging
and helpful
and important
for us to remember
what God has done
for us in our lives,
it is of most importance
to remember
what he did for us
before we were born,
which is that
he sent his son
as a man
who lived
as a real person
on this earth.
He lived a life
where he had many foes
and many people
were rising against him.
He didn't deserve it.
He was without sin.
He lived a perfect life.
And yet,
because of God's faithfulness,
because he's a shield
about us
and a lifter
of our head,
when Jesus went
to the cross,
he refused
to lift Jesus' head.
He abandoned
Jesus
so that he could
be with us.
The psalmist
didn't know this
when he wrote it.
David didn't know
exactly how God
was going to redeem
his people.
And so,
as we face trials,
first of all,
we probably face
a much less trial.
My guess is
you don't have
thousands of people
surrounding you.
You could.
And while we face
a less trial
than David faced,
we also face
a greater hope.
We have a greater thing
in the past
to remember,
which is that
for people
who have faith
in Christ,
Jesus has died
and risen
that we would have
life with him.
Now,
as I mentioned
last week,
faith is not
something that
everyone has.
Some people have
faith and some
people do not.
And faith has
three components
to it.
First,
it's knowledge.
It's knowing
the facts about
Jesus,
the fact that he
came and lived
a perfect life,
that he died
for our sins,
that he rose again
from the dead.
He was actually dead
and he was actually
alive.
But it's not just
knowledge.
Many people know
that,
but they don't
believe it.
And so faith
is also belief.
It's believing
that those things
are true,
that what God
tells us is true,
that we're sinners,
that we have no hope
outside of Jesus'
death for us,
that outside of his
death,
we are going to face
God's full and
final justice.
And then finally,
it's not just
knowledge and trust,
but it's also,
not knowledge and
belief,
but it's also trust
that we live our
lives as if these
things are true.
And so we live
our lives following
Jesus' commands,
not to earn
something from him,
but in gratitude
for the sacrifice
that he's made
for us.
So we look back,
we remind ourselves
of what's true,
we remind ourselves
of what God has
done in the past,
and more than
anything,
we remind ourselves
of his faithfulness
to us in Jesus.
This is the path
that God's given us
as we walk through
trials in this life.
We talk to him,
we cry out to him.
We remind ourselves
over and over again
of the truth.
And then we see
our last step
in verses 7 and 8,
we cry out to God
for help.
This is what the
psalmist does here,
Arise, O Lord,
save me, O my God,
verse 7,
for you strike all
my enemies on the
cheek,
you break the teeth
of the wicked.
It's not enough
to talk to God,
it's not enough
to list his faithfulness
to us,
but he longs for us,
he asks us,
he commands us
to pray to him
and to tell him
what we need
to ask for his help.
Whatever situation
we're in,
that we come to God
and we ask
for his deliverance,
God promises us
that prayer
changes things.
One of the things
that the psalms do
is they teach us
how to pray.
If you don't know
how to pray,
you can take a psalm
like Psalm 3
and you can make
it your own.
You can say,
O Lord,
how many are my foes?
My friend,
I thought was my friend,
is trying to destroy me.
Sometimes I think
it's foolish
to have faith in you
and sometimes
other people
think it's foolish too.
Verse 2.
Verse 3.
But you're the God
of the universe.
You're the Psalm 2 king
and you're coming back
one day
to make everything right.
I remember another time
in my life
when I faced
a circumstance,
not this exact one
but a similar one.
That other time,
maybe it was the time
I was without a job.
And I prayed to you
for months
and you worked
through your people
and you provided.
And I remember
another time
when I was having
difficulty sleeping.
But my trust
in you
was what was able
to get me through.
So,
verse 6,
I will not be afraid
of this friend
who's coming up
against me.
Finally,
verse 7,
I ask that you'd help me.
Vindicate me
in this situation.
Whether it means
revealing the truth
about the lies
that are being told.
Whether it means
taking this friend
and bringing the justice
that he needs
and deserves
if he's not willing
to repent.
And then finally,
verse 8,
salvation belongs
to the Lord.
In other words,
you are the one
who saves.
Not armies,
not people,
not bank accounts,
not competencies,
not degrees,
not resumes.
It's God
that has our salvation.
And so that's
what Psalm 3
teaches us.
It teaches us
how to pray.
It teaches us
how to face trials
in our lives
with faith.
Not with pie-in-the-sky faith,
but with the faith
that comes from
the hard work
of praying
and crying out to God.
Faith that comes
from the hard work
of reminding ourselves
over and over again
of how God's been
faithful in the past.
And faith that comes
from the hard work
of asking God
to intervene.
Now,
this is challenging
for many reasons.
One of the reasons
it's challenging
is that we're not
always sure
exactly how God
is going to answer.
So,
salvation belongs
to the Lord,
right?
Psalm 2,
God is coming back
to make everything right.
It's on the one hand.
On the other hand,
we do not experience
God's salvation
fully in this life.
In other words,
there are some things
in this life
that we are walking
through right now
that we want
God's deliverance from
that we will walk
with for the rest
of our lives.
There are some things
that we are walking
through right now
that we will walk
with through the rest
of our lives.
David experienced
physical salvation
in this specific situation.
He was saved
from Absalom.
If you know
the end of the story,
Absalom dies.
We will not experience
that same physical
deliverance
in every situation.
And this is part
of what's hard
about faith.
What do we do
with that?
What do we do
with Psalm 3
if the enemies
don't disappear?
What do we do
with Psalm 3
if we pray to God
and the situation
that we want
deliverance from
we are not
delivered from?
How do we have
faith then?
This is one
of the most
challenging questions
about being a Christian,
living life in this world.
There's lots of
clinical theological
answers I could give you.
But the most helpful
way of understanding
it comes in a story
from a friend of mine
that I come back to
as a way to help me
walk in this world
when I know
that God will not
always bring
the physical deliverance
that we long for.
So this friend of mine
he's I believe
in his mid-40s now
he was probably
maybe he's in his
yeah mid-40s
and he was
early to mid-40s
when this happened.
He was diagnosed
with cancer unexpectedly.
He felt like he was
very young for this
to happen.
And he had three kids.
He had a
seven-year-old daughter
and then he had
two twins who were four.
And he had the
kind of conversation
with his children
that no parent
wants to have.
He sat them down
and he felt that
he needed to
explain to them
in ways that they
could understand
what was going on
with their father.
And as a good
and faithful shepherd
of his family
he wanted to
help them
know how to pray.
And so as he
talked with his
seven-year-old
and his two
four-year-olds
he said
you can pray
to your heavenly
father
that he would
heal your earthly
father.
He wanted to
prepare them
for what might
come ahead
for their family.
You can pray
to your heavenly
father
about your earthly
father.
And he told
them that they
should pray
that God
would heal
their earthly
father.
That he would
have many more
years with
them.
He also
reminded his
children that
God may not
answer their
prayer in the
way that they
wanted.
So he was
teaching them
to pray.
He was also
preparing them.
But he told
them God wants
you to come to
him with the
desires of your
heart because
he's your father.
He's your heavenly
father.
And he said
no matter what
God answers us
when we pray
for this as a
family.
It's ultimately
for our good
and he loves
us.
He's going to
provide for us
and he will
always be with
us.
And finally he
told them there
are things that
we can pray for
that we know
that God will
answer.
God wants us
to grow in
faith and grace
and love so we
as a family can
pray for that.
He wants us
to trust him
more.
So we can pray
for that knowing
that he will
cause us to
trust him more.
And we can pray
for the fruit of
the spirit because
God has made it
clear that that's
something that he
wants.
He wants that
fruit to be born
in our lives and
he's going to
grow us in those
ways.
And so I want
you to pray to
your heavenly
father about your
earthly father.
Your heavenly
father may not
answer your
prayer in the
way that you
want.
But whatever way
he answers it
is ultimately
for our good.
he loves us.
He's going to
continue to
provide for us
and he's with
us.
And he didn't
say this but he
could have added
and we can also
recount the ways
that God has been
faithful to our
family in the
past.
Brothers and
sisters, we
have a heavenly
father.
When we face
difficult circumstances,
he wants us to
come to him with
our fears and
our doubts and
the desires of
our heart.
He wants us to
grow in our faith
and our grace and
our love and our
trust in him.
He wants us to
grow and no
matter what happens
we know that what
he does is
ultimately for our
good.
he loves us.
He will provide
it for us and
he is always with
us.
And so it's with
that hope and
that guarantee that
we can cry out to
God, telling him the
situations that we're
in, remembering his
faithfulness to us in
the past and asking
for his intervention
now because we know
what the psalmist
tells us in verse
eight.
Salvation belongs to
the Lord.
Lord, please pray
with me.
Dear Father in
heaven, we thank
you that we're your
children and you are
our Father and that
you care for us and
you love us.
We ask that you'd
grow our faith, that
you would help us to
be Psalm 3 people,
people who trust you
and cry out to you
no matter what.
We ask that you'd
grow us in those
ways.
And most of all, we
ask you these things
not because we earn
them or deserve them
but because salvation
belongs to you and
you've given it
through your son.
And so we ask these
things in his name.
Amen.