Psalm 143 Sermon. March 21, 2021. Grace-Vail and Grace-Benson We all want to be heard in our distress, we want to be safe from distress, we want to learn how to better avoid distress. But how do you get it? Imagine you were a King. You have skill and success, power and wealth, influence and energy. It would be easy to look to your own resources to get your desires filled. King David didn’t have to imagine. He had all those resources as King of Israel. Yet in Psalm 143, as he expressed his desire to be heard, to be safe, and to be more skilled in avoiding distress, he didn’t trust in himself. He laid out for us a path to get what we want. Let’s walk through this Psalm together. David began this psalm, “Lord, hear my prayer. Give ear to my cry for mercy.” When life is hard, one common desire is simply to be known and heard in your difficulty. We’re not entirely sure when David wrote this Psalm. His life had plenty of troubling times. Running for his life from Saul. Attacked by numerous enemies over the years. Or even the sleepless night and regret that most people face. It’s hard enough to face those problems. But if he was alone, David knew he had no chance. But a burden shared is a burden halved. David wanted to be heard, and known. He knew he needed God’s mercy. He asked that God answer him based on God’s faithfulness, not David’s, and because of God’s righteousness, not David’s. He didn’t claim to have earned the right to be heard and answered. He knew the opposite was true. He didn’t ask for rights, but for mercy. He asked God to treat him in an undeserved way. In fact, he went on to admit, no one living is righteous before you. Now at first, it may seem like David is comparing himself to others. Saying to God, “no one is righteous anyways, so I guess you shouldn’t judge me.” But actually David is laying out an argument before God that goes like this: “No one is righteous before you, and yet you seem to bless people all around me despite their unrighteousness. So on the basis of your merciful treatment of people that I’ve observed, I ask you to treat me in a merciful way as well.” David described his problem as “an enemy pursuing my soul.” This enemy is described in this way: “He crushes my life to the ground, makes me dwell in dark places like those long dead, causes my spirit to grow faint inside me, my heart within devastated.” What was this enemy? For David, could have been a literal army coming to fight him and his army, and times when it looked bleak for him. Or maybe when Saul chased him down. For us that is less common. But a spiritual attack is real as well. David was reminded in some way that the wages of sin is death; that sin is the ultimate enemy of my well being; death an enemy of life. The accuser satan comes to mind as well. Pursuing my soul. Crushing my life to the ground until I become dust and ash.. Makes me dwell in the darkness of a guilty conscience. The darkness of not trusting in God, because I feel my sins have separated him from me. Devastates my heart.
How can anyone find hope when things seem so bad? It seems like a depression like state for David. He What is an answer for the times when this perspective becomes so heavy? Things turn around for David in v. 5. “I remember the days of long ago. I meditate on all your works, and I consider what your hands have done.” David remembered God. Think of what that word means: to re-member something. When you remember you put the pieces of a puzzle back together in your mind. Who God is gets fragmented and cloudy when life is hard. You can forget that he is the most important character in the story of your life. David found a way to re-assemble those thoughts about God even in the middle of difficulty. He meditated on God’s works. That word meditate means more than just briefly call to mind. Think of a dog chewing on a bone, how they go over and over the bone, taking time, making sure not to miss one small pocket or corner. That’s what David did with God’s works. He replayed them over and over in his mind, he chewed on what God had done, and inwardly digested God’s works. For David it could have been remembering creation, or the promise God had given to Adam and Eve, or the way he rescued Noah with a boat in a catastrophic flood, or the way he freed the Israelites from salvery under Moses. Those past actions of God gave him confidence for his present problems. For us, we can replay all those Old Testament stories, and add the New Testament as well, and 2000 years of history of God advancing his promise to new people in new places. Things have looked bad for many people in the past, but God has always seen his people through. If we live in such a universe that includes a God who can do all that he has done, it is a good place to be. If we live in such a universe where God has rescued time and time again, we always have reason for hope. There’s always more to consider with God, like an ocean who invites exploration. So David spread out his hands to God and said, “My soul thirsts for you like a weary land.” Spreading out hands to God means a posture of receiving from him; expecting him to be the one you receive your good and your help from. David knew himself to be a weary land without God. Like a droughted land desires water, he desired God. Your soul is like that too. Does it do any good to fertilize dry ground? To dig and plant seeds? To give it more sunlight? It needs water. Your soul doesn’t need more information, more resources, more skills as much as it needs God. He is like the water that activates all those other things to be positive additives in your life. But you need him first, like dry land needs water first. After laying out the situation to God, David then made his request. He said, Hurry! Answer me, Lord.” Is it ok to tell God to hurry up? Now, if it’s a request of, “hurry up and give me what I want when I want it,” then no, that’s not ok. But if it’s a request of, “God, without you I won’t last much longer. Without you I’m going to wither up; and I know that’s not what you want. My spirit is
failing. Please hurry and help me,” then yes, God invites that kind of prayer. It’s ok to say, God, I’m having a hard time, and I need your help, now. Hurry please. What happens when the spirit fails? Think of it like a water filter. If the filter holds, you get pure water, while the dirt and toxins stay with the filter. Air filter the same way. Or cell membranes in your body. Keep that bad stuff out, let the good stuff in. Your spirit acts like that. What do I say yes to and what do I say no to? When my spirit fails, I say yes to the wrong stuff and no to the right stuff. When my spirit is rightly functioning, I see evil as bad and say no; I see good as good and say yes. On my own, my spirit will fail. I need your help God. So please answer me. Just an answer from God has a spirit filter restoring quality. You need him to be woven into the fabric of your being, so that your spirit-filter doesn’t rip when the pressure of the world’s toxic and dirt filled stream comes your way. Don’t hide your face from me. For God’s face to be hidden means that I am left only to look at my face or at the faces of other people. I was designed to see God’s face. A lot like young children need face to face contact to thrive and to relate. Masks and obstructions get in the way. We need God’s face or we will become mis-developed, malformed, we will have a warped view of what we are in this world for. If you don’t have God’s face, you end up spiraling down into the pit. The pit is not just a grave for your body, but a downward spiral for a soul to eternally fall into. Without the face of God, the only other alternative is a faceless pit; a pit of darkness. We all will fall into it unless the Lord rescues. So, what do I need? Let me hear about your mercy in the morning. I need daily reminders of who God is and what he does. Of all the problems that David had, all the failures, he had this figured out. I need God every day. The idea that I should relate to God by what I do for him, that’s a frequent, common thought that all people have. The idea that God relates to me through grace - that’s rare. We need reminders or we will forget. Just think of all the daily habits you have. You brush teeth, shower, take care of your body every day. What about your soul? Why not build in habits to care for your soul? Do you daily spend time watching entertainment, scrolling through feeds, checking sites; why not daily check in on God’s Word? Why not meditate, and re-member him more often? Because the Holy Spirit had taught David to ignore the urgent to get to the important, he had long-term strength. “For I trust in you.” David said. If you trust in God above all else, that trust will serve as a guiding star through the rest of the muck and mire of life. The guiding light through the smoke and mirror the devil uses against you. I need rescue - nothing less, I have enemies, devil and death, and I cannot hide from them. If I hide in God, I don’t need to hide from God. I hide in God’s mercy from God’s wrath. But how can any
of us hide in God? The only way was for him to hide my sins in himself. How can I hide in God? In the flesh of Jesus on the cross, I can now hide in him, because he did not hide the consequence of sin. He experienced it fully. Like we heard in John 12, Jesus didn’t hide from that moment, but said, “I am a seed to be put in the ground dead, so I can come out living with life to give.” Jesus hid my guilt in himself, so I can hide in him, and be free, and secure. David realized that as he hid in the Lord, even more than rescue happened. He received not only rescue from danger, but a whole new way to live. Teach me to do your will. You give me a superior way to handle the challenges of life. May your good spirit lead me on level ground. Hiding in some places is constraining. Hiding in Jesus is liberating. The narrowness of hiding in Jesus leads to such spaciousness of full life. Life actually becomes more enjoyable and easy when I’m aligned with God, like walking on level ground. Why would I expect God to do any of these things? For the sake of your name. Because God has a name that is good, he is only good, and you and I can expect only good from him David expressed what happens when people go to God for help. When we connect with God rather than trying to solve our massive problems on our own, rather than trying to face our enemy alone. If I get linked up with God through faith, then God’s name is tied up with my outcome, with my failing or rising. He has linked humself with how I do in the trial that is life and sin and attack. That’s why we can be confident that he will preserve our lives. He gets glory because we were meant to exist forever. God desires our existence to be a never ending life. He will bring his desired goal to completion. He gets us out of trouble by his righteousness. He wipes out our enemies because of his mercy. He destroys those who threaten our lives. He makes us his servants, and he calls himself our God. So we all can lift up our souls to him. That’s a way of saying to God, “You manage this soul of mine, I don’t do a good job of it. I put it in your control first. You take the reigns of my life. You be the master of my soul, things go better when you are and when my sinful nature dies in your presence. A few application points from this Psalm. First, don’t let your sinfulness stop you from praying to God, and seeking his aid. If your sin did not stop Jesus from coming to die on the cross for you in agony, why would it stop him from helping you now, sinner though you are? Go to him. Let your anxieties and soul thirsts lead you to God, not away from him. When you go, make your arguments. Make your case based on what you know from his Word that he has said about you and about himself. Ask him to hurry up if needed. Respectfully, humbly, not demanding, but simply asking for what glorifies God. He loves to find a way to make you an ingredient in his divine glory. Don’t just ask for deliverance from whatever problem presses you in the moment, ask for the ability to use his deliverance well. What good is deliverance if you will only go putting yourself in
danger all over again? We need God to rescue us, and then keep us in a state of being rescued. Don’t just look for a bailout, but ask for a connected relationship with God. He will delight to give you what he once gave David. God gives you security, he hears you, he brings you to himself. Amen.