1 Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! 2 Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him.” 3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. 4 I call out to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain. 5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 6 I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. 7 Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. 8 From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3)
Yesterday we heard from Psalm 2 about how the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain against the Lord and his anointed. Today, in this Psalm ascribed to David, we hear the response of faith from the Lord’s anointed.
All the things that Pastor Michael said yesterday are things we know. We know God ultimately wins out. We know that we have a secure hope for the future in Christ. And yet, while living this life between the promise and its fulfillment, the world often looks more like what David describes here in the words, “how many are my foes!”
All the world seems intent on subverting the main gospel message that the Lord delivers, or saves. We are told both explicitly and implicitly that we need to insure ourselves, secure ourselves, pursue our own happiness, peace, order, and good government—that we need to work ourselves up the ladder and elbow everyone else out on the way there under the assumption that there just isn’t enough for everyone.
In response to these explicit and implicit messages swirling around us from advertisements, influencers, and the accumulated wisdom of “the way things are,” many of us do live life in pursuit of our own salvation. We may perceive our need for salvation to be any number of things—saving from our family story or history, saving from financial or physical insecurity, saving from death and illness, saving from pain—there’s no limit to the things any one of us might perceive as a threat or a worry, including our own selves and sins.
And yet, though David found the same issue, he responded differently. Though just as many messages of “God will not deliver you” were coming at him, he did not respond by seeking to save himself. Instead, he turned to prayer. Psalm 3 is the first prayer of the Psalter: the first Psalm that addresses God directly.
Two paths are set before us: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. The way of life and the way of death. Choosing life and righteousness means choosing, against all odds and apparent reality, that the God of our confession is every ounce the God he says he is. It means choosing to believe that Jesus Christ really does save.
Prayer in this context then, is an action of faith. An action of choosing to entrust ourselves, our cause, our anxieties and fears—all of it, to God. And, having entrusted ourselves to God in Christ, we may just find what David does—that in Christ, we also find our rest—no matter what our situation.
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