Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
     You have given me relief when I was in distress.
     Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
     How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?
But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;
     the LORD hears when I call to him.
Be angry, and do not sin;
     ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices,
     and put your trust in the LORD.
There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
     Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!”
You have put more joy in my heart
     than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
     for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.—Psalm 4:1–8 

Introduction

One of my all time favorite movies is Home Alone. We watch it every Christmas. I love it when eight-year-old Kevin defends his home against the bumbling burglars Harry and Marv. Kevin makes sure that the whole house is bursting with booby traps. The burglars step on Christmas ornaments with bare feet—crunch! They get a blowtorch that fries the top of their head, and you hear the skin sizzle. They have paint cans swing from the top of the steps and smash right into their faces. Kevin puts a trip wire, and you watch them flip over and fall on the ground with a hard thud. Harry and Marv get angrier and angrier with every step they take in that house, and they shake their fist at Kevin and vow to get him. 

We laugh when we watch this movie, but sometimes this fallen world can feel like there are dangers everywhere. It can feel like we are living in that house and have to watch our step everywhere we go. We can get angrier and angrier every time something trips us up and we feel increasingly beat up.

Here is the question: when tripped up by things around you, what does it trigger in you? For the psalmist, trouble did not trigger increasing anger that made him want to shake his fist at God. Trouble triggered a call to God for more of God because of his trust in God.

1. Call to God (v. 1)

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!

Where you go first is of first importance. David does not talk about God—he goes directly to God. This is not a small thing. Our starting place sets a trajectory that informs everything else. If you start going the wrong way from the very beginning, you get lost right from the start.

Jesus once compared prayer to a widow who persistently went to a judge for justice. Why would the widow go to a judge? She went right to the person who can do something about her situation. When he acts, things happen. When the gavel comes down, the guilty person is immediately handcuffed and sent to jail. 

The psalmist is pleading his case. He doesn’t bother going to the lower courts; he goes right to the Supreme Court of the Universe. What about you? Is your first impulse to go after the person who has done something to you? Do you go to someone else first for help? 

This is the key point here. Trouble should trigger prayer. Going to God should be a first impulse, not a last resort.

I love the poetic way that Psalm 4 brings Psalm 3 back into the picture. The word for distress (Psalm 4:1) here is the same word used in Psalm 3:1 for David’s foes when he says, “O Lord how many are my foes.” Psalm 4:1 has the same two words as Psalm 3:4—cry and answer.

I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill.—Psalm 3:4

The psalmist has learned something about God. In distress, David keeps returning to the fundamental, rock-solid truth that salvation belongs to the Lord. He says, “I know my God. My God is faithful. I don’t appeal for an answer based on my righteousness—I call upon God as my righteousness. I am not trying to repay all of God’s help, as if I am paying back a debt.” 

This is one-way love. Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be. David looks to God because God has proven himself again and again. The fact that God is faithful makes prayer a pattern in David’s life: “you have given me relief when I was in distress” (Psalm 4:1). David asks for grace. Salvation belongs to the Lord, so David keeps calling on him.

After talking with God, David has some words for those who are trying to shame him.

2. Warning to the Wicked (vv. 2–5)

O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
     How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?       Selah
But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
     the Lord hears when I call to him. 

Be angry, and do not sin;
     ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.        Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
     and put your trust in the Lord.

The phrase translated “O men” is a unique Hebrew expression often reserved for men in high places. These men are seeking to turn David’s honor—the same word as appeared in Psalm 3:3—into shame. But it is a foolish endeavor. 

When will they stop? David goes back to a word—vain—that he used in Psalm 2: “Why do the peoples plot in vain?” (Psalm 2:1). In opposing God’s anointed king, these men are trying to achieve what is impossible. They cannot overthrow God’s king any more than they can overthrow God. His rule is secure. They are living and loving lies. They are not living in reality. They need to wake up and get a clue. How long will they continue on a road that goes nowhere?

Here is why it won’t work. David highlights God’s steadfast love. God has set apart the person that has received his steadfast love. In Psalm 4, godly is a word that is related to the word for the Lord’s steadfast love (hesed). David claims to be someone that has steadfast love for the Lord because of the Lord’s steadfast love for him. The Lord has set him apart. To rebel against David is to rebel against the Lord’s purposes.

That is why David’s enemies don’t have a prayer—only David does. The Lord hears his prayers; “the Lord hears when I call to him” (Psalm 4:3). The suggestion here is that God does not hear the wicked. This takes the reader back to Psalm 1:6, which says, “the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Later, Psalm 34 will say that the Lord’s eyes and ears are turned toward the righteous (Psalm 34:15), but the face of the Lord is against the wicked (Psalm 34:16). 

Now David basically tells his enemies that they will not get what they want. He also tells them what to do with the rage and rebellion they have in their hearts against God and his anointed king. David tells them to stop acting out of their pointless anger. He tells them that they should cease speaking their lies and vain words and just sit down and stop yapping. They should ponder with their hearts (not with their mouths) alone in their beds. There, they should come to the right conclusion to repent and lay down their rebellion.

Reaching the right conclusion about how fixed and established God’s rule is through his king will cause the wicked to offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord rather than rebelling against him. The command to “offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the LORD” seems to suggest that the opposite is currently happening (v. 5). They are offering wrong sacrifices, and they are trusting in vain things that have no sure substance instead of trusting in the unswerving strength of God’s kingdom and rule. 

These are fascinating verses because David is once again speaking to men of high position and telling them to be wise and be warned and do away with their empty thoughts of rebellion. There is a wise way to work through anger without sinning.

The apostle Paul even applies this exhortation to Christians and says that anger should have a daily shelf life. Food that sits out overnight is likely to be visited by some unsavory creepy-crawlies. The food will spoil and become a playground for infestation. Paul says that harboring anger is like leaving the door of your life open to Satan to come in. Who on earth would leave their door wide open if they knew there was a lion on the loose seeking to kill, destroy, and devour? 

This is a powerful moment to pause and ponder as we learn to lament. There are a couple of ditches to avoid on either side of a biblical lament. If lamenting is the biblical road, the ditch on the right could be called “venting,” and the ditch on the left side could be called “pretending.” Venting is dangerous because it claims that the only thing that matters is getting the anger out of your system; it has no concern for the people around you who will be collateral damage. Pretending is dangerous because it hurts you to pretend—it’s like ignoring the acid reflux that is going to eat away your esophagus. Anger is like an acid that eats away the inner lining of your life. 

A lament is different because you take it directly to God. You entrust the feelings to him. If you feel betrayed and lied to, don’t go explode on someone, and don’t let it grow moldy and stale and bitter. Instead, cast your anxieties and your burdens upon the Lord and confess that you are too weak to carry them.

That is why these men should not let the sun go down on their anger. Psalm 4 ends on the same note concerning the end of the day and resting with the peace of faith, not the restless rage of anger.

3. Call for God (vv. 6–8)

There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
     Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”
You have put more joy in my heart
     than they have when their grain and wine abound.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
     for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Now David quotes what others are asking for, and he contrasts it with what he is asking for. The first words in verse six (“many are saying”) are an exact repetition of a phrase in Psalm 3:2. I think the point of this repetition is to frame the opposition together in the two psalms. The people who say that God is not going to save David are the same kind of people who say that God won’t show them any good.

David corrects this crooked request. God showing us good means God giving us himself. God is our chief good. His nearness is our good. God is light, joy, and peace.

First, the good that we should be seeking is intensely personal and relational. “Lift up the light of your face upon us” is a line from a blessing in Numbers 6. 

May the Lord cause his face to shine on you, may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you.—Numbers 6:25

Second, God’s presence is better than boatloads of bread and booze. We have more joy in him than the wicked do when grain and wine abound (v. 7). David is describing a feast with overflowing grain bins and wine vats. Many people have set their hearts on an abundance of earthly goods, but David would rather have a famine with God than a feast without God.

The Israelites grumbled in the wilderness; they would have rather been back in Egypt’s slavery if meat was boiling in the pot. Moses would have rather been in the howling wasteland with God than in the paradise of a promised land without God. Moses’ prayer in the desert was this: “show me your glory!” 

When David finds himself in a dry and weary land where there is no water, he still believes that God’s steadfast love is better than life and better than an abundance of the world’s goods.

Third, David finds rest in God alone as his source of safety (v. 8). David also speaks of “lying down and sleeping” in Psalm 3:5. These verses give the reason why many people in the history of the church have called Psalm 4 an evening psalm.

David can rest before the situation is resolved. This verse illustrates what life was like when Saul was hunting him down. Every night he would lay down and sleep even though Saul was still after him. David was content to trust the Lord’s sense of timing. He was not restless or anxious for a resolution. He turned it over into the Lord’s hand.

Have you ever been driving and trying to stay alert but found yourself getting sleepy? What a comfort when someone you trust offers to take a turn at the wheel so you can rest. I can remember the exhaustion just washing over me as I seemed to sink into bed and have deep REM rest. The psalmist is saying that God alone offers REM-type rest in a restless world. Psalm 3 and 4 are tied together again with these words: lie down and sleep (Psalm 3:5; 4:8). 

This Psalm is very personal for me because it mirrors the blessing that I give my kids every night:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.—Numbers 6:24–26

As your pastor, my heart burns for you to have this blessing. How can you have it? How can God’s face be light for you in the darkness? How can he give you peace in a world of chaos? How can he make your heart buoyant and glad rather than drowning with sorrow? How does God answer these prayers?

Psalm 3 and Psalm 4 live out the truth of Psalm 1:2. David meditates on the Law day (the morning psalm) and night (the evening psalm). He knows from the Law that God is his light and grace and peace. He also knows the promise from Genesis 49 and Numbers 24 that God would raise up a king from the line of Judah that would have the royal scepter over all of his enemies.

The one-word fulfillment of this whole Psalm is Jesus. We have come right to the core of Christianity here. One of Jesus’ followers asked Jesus this very question. He said, “show us the Father and it is enough” (John 14:8). In other words, he wanted to see God. Is there a way to do that? Here is Jesus’ staggering reply: 

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”—John 14:9 

Wow! A prayer to see God is answered when we see Jesus. Jesus is our light, he is our joy, and he is our peace. The Bible tells us that we see the brilliant beams of God’s glory in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). He is the light of the world who has come into the world to save sinners, bringing them from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the saints in light.

Jesus himself is our peace. He gives a peace that is unlike what the world can give with its insurance and security systems and national guards. Jesus gives a peace that can’t be lost. The world gives a peace that has to be guarded night and day, but Jesus gives a peace that guards us—that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Jesus is our joy. He is the treasure of the church who can’t be taken away by the world. Oh, the surpassing treasure (or value) of knowing Christ. He is our fullness of joy. He fills our hearts with gospel awe.

Look at how he was at the highest place of heavenly glory, but he came down to earth. People today marvel that we can put a man in a space capsule and launch him to the moon. We should marvel more that God sent his Son rocketing to earth in a capsule called a virgin’s womb. Marvel at how Jesus perfectly did everything the Father told him to do as an obedient Son. He never sinned. He never gave anyone a reason to blame him for anything—he didn’t do anything blameworthy. And yet we see how he was persecuted at every step. Jesus, unlike David, never sinned, and yet he was opposed and afflicted morning and night.

But watch the way Jesus kept having compassion on people who were like sheep without a shepherd. Watch the miracles—he turned water into wine, opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, and lifted up little girls from the grave.

Watch him as he sweated drops of blood in agony as he prepared to suffer on the cross. The hill of Calvary became a hell for him as he endured the wrath of God. Then watch him rocket out of the grave.

So what if man can go to the moon? I want to watch someone rocket out of the grave. Jesus is resurrected, triumphant over death and all of his enemies. He rocketed to heaven, where he rules at His father’s side until all his enemies are like a footstool under his feet. He is coming again to make all things new and to judge the world in righteousness.

We are so enthralled today with movie stars and singers who can’t come close to doing any of that. Oh, how I want this truth to define us as a church. Churches are becoming carnivals with many different attractions. The church is not a carnival with many attractions. The church has only one attraction: Christ! Christ is the attraction. People are starving to see the supremacy of Christ. 

I want our church to pass what I call the butter-wrapper test. I love the story of how one woman was converted by reading a single page of one of Spurgeon’s sermons which had been wrapped around some butter she bought. That one page of the sermon had enough of Jesus in it for her to be saved. The gospel is the power of God to save. We want every sermon and every song and every small group and every Sunday school class to be packed with gospel power and gospel hope. 

We are not the kind of church that will try to attract people with Starbucks or light, fluffy, ear-tickling preaching. We do not start by asking what people want or by talking about how God can make you rich and successful—no suffering, no mention of sin or wrath.

So why are some people bored with Jesus? There is a show on Netflix called “American Restoration.” People bring in old, historical things that are faded and rusty and broken down, and they ask Rick’s Restoration to restore these things back to their bright, shiny condition. After they go through the process of restoring the items, they bring the customer back and have a black veil over the restored item. The customers are obviously not very impressed by the item because they can’t really see it yet—a veil is over it. Then Rick removes the veil, and the customers’ eyes light up, and they usually go bonkers: “Whoa, that is amazing! Unbelievable! It’s fantastic!”

The item was just as glorious under the veil, but its glory couldn’t be seen until the veil was removed. The situation is so different with Jesus. He is not some historical figure that fades or gets rusty. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. I don’t need to exaggerate who he is so that he looks beautiful in your eyes—I can’t do him justice. He is better than I can put into words. No one has put a veil over Jesus. That would be like trying to put a veil over the sun. Try it and watch the veil burn right off.

The veil is not over Jesus. The veil or blindfold is over us, over our eyes and hearts. Imagine if the customer was blindfolded and Rick said, “Here it is. Look at this restoration. Can you believe how much it pops now?” The customer could not see it. The blindfold needs to be removed.

In the same way, the Bible talks about the eyes of our hearts. Those eyes can be blind, and the heart can be dark. But when Christ is preached, God can intervene and flood the heart with light so that our eyes are opened and we see the light of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). 

It is in the gospel that we see the light of God’s glory in the face of Jesus. How is Jesus revealed in the gospel? What do we see when we gaze upon his face? To understand the good news, you first have to understand the bad news. In our guilt and shame, seeing God’s face is not good news. It is the terror of the universe. God’s eyes are too pure to behold sin. The last thing we want is a penetrating gaze that sees all of our imperfections. That would be like a judge seeing all the evidence against us, our condemnation and crime and punishment growing the longer he looks at the file against us. 

Here is the good news. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He came to nail the case against us to the cross. It has been paid in full. We didn’t just have folders documenting our sins—we have whole filing drawers. Now they have been thrown in the sea of forgetfulness. No one will ever open them. The guilt is gone. Justice has now switched sides.

We know what that he has already ruled in our favor. The gavel of “not guilty” has already sounded. We hear that sweet sound echo through our souls. But then it gets better: we are adopted into God’s family through Christ. Now the face we see is the face of a loving Father. The way that the most loving father here on earth looks at his child is nothing compared to the way our perfect Father looks upon his children. Do you think that any imperfect parents love their children here more than our perfect Father loves us?

We look in the face of Jesus, and we see a smile—an Almighty smile. We see the loving look of “no condemnation.” Not the narrowing of the eyes and the furrowing of the brow, but the widening and beaming smile.

Is that what you see when you gaze at the face of Christ in the gospel? In the darkness of our shame, a light of hope breaks through that can never be extinguished. We have eternal hope. What earthly good could purchase eternal salvation and blessedness? 

Closing Song: “Lord, Let Your Light”

 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline
1. Call to God (v. 1)
2. Warning to Us (vv. 2–5)
3. Call for God (vv. 6–8)

Main Point: Trouble triggers a call to God for more of God. Trials are like trip wires. This life is full of them. When you are tripped up by things around you, what does it trigger in you? For the psalmist, trouble did not trigger more and more anger that made him want to shake his fist at God. Trouble triggered a call to God for more of God because of his trust in God. 

Discussion Questions
1. How does Psalm 4 relate to Psalm 1, 2, and 3?

2. How does the order of the psalm, in terms of where David starts, help establish priorities in prayer and lament?
3. How does Psalm 4 force us to wrestle with our desires and what we define as “good”?

Application Questions
1. Do you have a pattern of prayer in your life like Psalm 4? Do you have to work through any anger toward God for the trials in your life?

2. What are the two ditches on either side of Biblical lamenting? How does Psalm 3 and Ephesians 4:26 give guidance in avoiding these ditches?
3. Describe your experience with Jesus. Are you seeing the glory of his face? Is it more satisfying than any earthly experience?

Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to see the glory of Christ’s face in the gospel. Pray for a grace to say that Christ is better than any earthly good.