Psalm 3. And as I always do, I just give a short foundation for those who may be visiting or listening online. And, you know, just to lay a foundation for the Psalms, it's not one book with 150 chapters. They're individual Psalms. And these were actually songs that the Jews would and still do sing. And so it's basically an ancient Jewish hymn book. And so that's one reason I love singing the songs, because I feel like it's another way of just memorizing and resonating on the word of God. And Psalms is actually divided by five books or five scrolls. And if you've got a good study Bible, it'll separate that for you. But the first one is Psalms 1 through 41. And the theme of this book of the Psalms is human suffering and the need for divine deliverance. We've already seen that in Psalm 2. We're gonna see it again in Psalm 3. And in Psalm 3, most specifically, it's suffering brought about by people who would want to do us physical harm, our enemies, and even, I guess you could say, the betrayal of even family members. Certainly that'll bring some suffering. And we find some first in Psalm 3. This is the first time that a Psalm is actually labeled at the beginning. It tells us who the writer is. Of course, it's the Psalm of David. But it tells us what it ties back to when he fled from Absalom, his son. There's actually 14 Psalms. that tied directly to an event that took place in the Old Testament. And in the case of Psalm 3, it's Absalom's rebellion. You can find that in 2 Samuel chapters 15 through 18. I encourage you to read that. I actually sent that out in the Altex system this week that it would be very beneficial to read that because it would just give some context for the Psalm itself. And so, Absalom obviously was one of David's sons and the Bible says that Absalom was one of the most handsome and charming men in the entire kingdom. Over a period of time, he won over the hearts of the people of Israel right under David's nose, even as he sat as king. Absalom, along with David's trusted servant Ahithophel, conspired to overthrow David and even kill him. Can you imagine being in David's shoes. Not only has Absalom enacted this conspiracy to dethrone him, but he set out to kill his own father. And so David gets wind of this. One of his servants hears about this conspiracy and immediately David takes some of his most trusted soldiers and servants and flees to the wilderness. there in the Mount of Olives. And so it's a very discouraging situation, very embarrassing, very shameful. And so this is the context for which David writes. In fact, to give you more context, when he flees to the wilderness, Absalom gathers 12,000 soldiers to go after him. And so this is not something that Absalom is half-heartedly doing. He's going to kill his father. And so he's running, David is running in the wilderness from these thousands of soldiers and his own son. And this is when he pens these words. Psalm 3, let's read the whole Psalm today, but we'll only get through the first four verses. But for the sake of context, we'll read all eight. Let's read the word of God together. Psalm three and verse one. Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God. Selah. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept. I await, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone. Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon Thy people. Selah, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just come to you in Jesus' name. Lord, just so thankful for the great salvation that can only be found by grace through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lord, I'm thankful that not only do you save our souls, Lord, but you can also keep us safe physically, Lord, that just like George Whitefield said, that we're immortal until our work on earth is done, not because there's anything in us, not because we're powerful. None of us have power in the day of death, Lord, but we know that we will not be taken out of this world one second before you're ready. And I'm so thankful for that comfort today. Lord, I pray for those that maybe even now they're experiencing the hurt and the suffering that comes with betrayal. Lord, that comes from the pain of how loved ones might have treated us. Lord, even in the future, we don't know how things are going to go in this country just like so many before us in the annals of church history. Lord, maybe we will face persecution. Maybe we will have enemies that come after us and seek to take our life, Lord, and we can remember and we can claim the words of Psalm 3, Lord, that you're even over our enemies, and we're thankful for that. I pray that you fill me, your Holy Spirit, into me as sin itself, and I pray if one is lost, that you would save them. Lord, encourage your people, and I pray that Christ would be magnified. It's in his name we pray these things, amen. So this morning we're looking at the thought, Oh Lord, the lifter of my head. And of course I gave you the context for Psalm 3. It's certainly specific to something that David was going through. But I don't want you to make, we do always want to keep things in context. But I don't want you to make the mistake of reading this and think that it's so specific to his situation that it can't be applied to ours. I'll be honest, if you read Psalm 3 without the introduction, and you didn't know David's specific situation, it would still be a lot of comfort to the believer, would it not? It would still stand on its own as a great source of comfort for us. And so I want to wrestle today with in what ways can the Lord lift us up in times of great trouble and distress, and I know you're not going to be shocked by this, but my first point turned into my first sermon. That's why we have at least a part two next week, but you'll be glad about that, I'm sure. But I really want to take time because, honestly, we're going to deal with some very heavy stuff today. And that's, you know, it can be confusing because how are we going to find comfort by dealing with very heavy things? That's why I've got a very fine line to walk this morning. I don't want you to leave confused. I want you to leave encouraged, but the only way you can leave encouraged is if you understand the truth that is coming from this text. And so the thing that I really want to focus on today is the fact that as children of God, saved people, now lost people can't say this, But as children of God, those that have been saved by grace through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I want you to know that you can find comfort in the source of our circumstances. And that's what I want to talk about this morning and how we can find comfort in the Lord, how He is the lifter of our head in times of distress. It's because we can take comfort in the fact that He is the source of our circumstances. God is sovereign over our suffering. And if He brings us to it, He'll bring us through it. He has a plan and a purpose. And to me, that brings great comfort to me, to know that as a child of God, there is no such thing as purposeless suffering. There is no such thing as pointless suffering. And so He is the source of our circumstance. Look at verse 1 again. Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God. Selah. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord of my voice, and he heard me out of thy holy hill. Selah. Now, as we read this text, I believe the natural question that should arise is how and why did David get into this situation? We know that David was a man after God's own heart. Why is he suffering so much at the hands of his own son and even some of his most trusted servants who have betrayed him? How did he end up here? Now listen, this is where we have to be very careful. Because ultimately, if we're not careful, We can be like Job's friends. And anytime that somebody gets into some kind of trouble, we say, well, they must deserve that. They must have sinned and therefore they deserve that. But the problem is we don't have that absolute knowledge. And in the case of Job, right at the onset of the book, right there in chapter 1, it tells us that Job did not sin, but he was a man that loved and feared God. So it took that away from us, that he wasn't suffering because of something he did. God was sovereign over that and had a point. I'm going to get back there. But in our own life, if we hold other people to that standard, guess what's going to happen every time something bad happens in our life? What have I done? Now, that's not a bad question to ask, but it's a terrible thing to beat yourself up about because God doesn't play peekaboo with stuff like that. And so, but in David's case, we can say unequivocally he is in this situation because of his sin. David is in this situation because of one word, sin. Now, the reason we know this is because although Absalom began conspiring against his father in 2 Samuel chapter 15, but if you were to go, and you don't have to turn here, but I would encourage you to read this as well. If you back up just a few chapters in 2 Samuel chapter 12, this is when David gets a visit from the prophet Nathan. Now if you'll remember, Bible students, David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, had gotten her pregnant, and when he found out about that, he tried to hide it. He had her husband Uriah, who was a soldier in his army, come back from the battle hoping that he and Bathsheba would sleep together and then he could always claim it was his child, but Uriah was too faithful to do that. He said, I'm not even going to sleep in my, I'll sleep in the streets because my men are out fighting and I'm not even going to stay in my house. Boy, he must have put David to shame. David should have been leading his men on the battlefield. Well, that didn't work, so he sent Uriah to the front line, special instructions to his generals that Uriah was to fight on the front lines, knowing he would eventually be killed. Well, that's what happened, and so he essentially had Uriah murdered to cover up his adultery. And so David has done this horrible deed, and it just so happened that Nathan the prophet comes by David's house for a visit. And Nathan tells David a story, this is my paraphrase, but he tells David a story about two men who lived in the same town. He said one of the men was very wealthy and he had more sheep than he knew what to do with. But then there was a poor man who only had one sheep, and he treated that sheep like its own son. He loved that sheep. And the wealthy man who had all the sheep had somebody come visit from out of town, and he wanted to serve lamb as a meal for the guest. And instead of slaying one of his many lambs, he stole the one lamb from the poor man and ate of that lamb. And he said, David, what do you think should be done to that wealthy man who stole the sheep from the poor man? David said, he should be killed. And Nathan said, thou art the man. Wow. Wow. And so, at this point, here's what Nathan says to David. And this is in 2 Samuel 12, verses 9 through 12. He says, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now listen to this, the sword shall never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house. And I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor. And he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun, for thou didst it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. So there is no doubt why this thing with Absalom is happening, because it's the judgment of God upon David. Well, you say, I thought this was a comforting sermon. Well, we're getting there. I told you we'd deal with some heavy things, okay? And so this is the sword that is rising up against David from his own household, his own children. And so when we look at this situation under this one heading of our circumstances being from God, we can take comfort in this. And if you're taking notes, I want you, this is like a subheading. But we can take comfort in the character of God. Now when you look at David, after his sin, he was never again a great military leader. His children caused him, it wasn't just Absalom. His children also caused him unimaginable grief for the rest of his life. Absalom's just one example. And so as we look at this situation that David is due to his sin, how can we find comfort in this? Well, we can look at the character of God, that's why. And I want you to think about this from Uriah's perspective for a second, okay? I mean, he was one of David's most faithful soldiers. There's no doubt about it. And he was done so wrong. What an injustice. I mean, I read the story of Uriah and it grieves me. What an injustice, and certainly we live in an unjust world, and most of the time it seems that in this unjust world that it's just commonplace that the wealthy and powerful get away with anything and everything. And God says, oh no, not with me. This is an inside look. This inside look at the life of David proves that God is no respecter of persons. And even when it comes to His children, He will judge righteously. The Lord was looking out for the voiceless when it came to Uriah. And now listen, even when people do us wrong, Even when they seek our destruction. We don't have to sweat it because the Lord is in control. And listen, sometimes we will be a Uriah. If you've never been done wrong before, just hold on a little while. It's gonna happen. People are going to do you wrong. And sometimes we can be a Uriah. I hate to even say it like that. Because nobody, at least up to this point, has ever murdered us so they can marry our spouse. So my version of being done wrong is probably different than Uriah's was. But still, pain is real. People hurt us, but listen, I would say this, the Christian life is a tough life. And in fact, can I say this? It's an impossible life to live without the grace of Jesus Christ. In fact, I've heard it said that God will never put more on you than you can bear lyre, lyre, pants on fire. He will absolutely put more on us than we can bear, but he'll never put more on us than he can bear. That's why it brings us to our knees. I mean, honestly, if we could just do everything, if life was just as simple as turning a Nissan switch in a car or flipping a light switch, we'd never ask God for anything. Let's just be honest. Lord, I pray that you'd help me flip that light switch and get these lights turned on. If it was always that simple, we'd never depend on God for anything. We'd be self-sufficient. So God allows us to go through things, and He sends us through things, and He allows us to be Uriahs, for lack of a better term, so we can see His mercy and grace and power in those situations. But also, too, we have to understand this, that when people wrong us, sometimes we get consumed with getting revenge. you know, somehow getting back or getting our power. But Romans 12 and verse 19 says, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Now listen, when we hear the phrase robbing from God, how often do we think about robbing God of vengeance? We probably don't think about it enough, do we? But I can promise you this, anytime we try to take away something that belongs to God, it's a burden that we can't bear. And when he says, give me that vengeance, that's a burden that you better give him because you can't bear it by yourself. It will eat you alive. It will steal your joy. It will rob you of the power of your Christian witness. And it'll just sap you of every good thing in your life. It really will. And you, listen, you think that that bitterness and anger against that one person wronged you will stay within the confines of that relationship. It doesn't work like that. It'll affect every relationship in your life. The book of Hebrews talks about that root of bitterness that springs out and defiles many. You can't control that thing. You just better give it to God. He's better at it than you'll be anyway. And He knows every situation. He knows what people deserve and don't deserve. You better give that to God. But the reason we can find encouragement in this is that we can trust in the character of God. He's always going to do the right thing. And so when we find ourselves in adverse circumstances, no matter the reason why, we can trust Him. I'm gonna get to that. The second thing I want you to know, not only the character of God, but also in the keeping of God. Now think about this. Even though David was a man after God's own heart, he committed heinous sin. There is no sugarcoating this at all. There's no backing away from this. What he did was horrible. It was inexcusable for the child of God. But sometimes, now we talked about sometimes we are like Uriah and have been done wrong, but sometimes we are like David and do others wrong. I'll tell you this, the Lord always acts accordingly. Now, think about this. He slept with another man's wife and then had Uriah killed in order to escape the consequences. However, David, this is so important, David never lost his salvation, ever. In fact, eventually, in about 50 years from now, we'll be in Psalm 51, where we, well, 51 years from now, where we're gonna read about, in David's own words, his grief and his repentance over that sin, and that's the difference between a saved person and a lost person. God's children can mess up, but they can't stay there. They're going to be miserable before, during, and after because we have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, He's convicting us, and God is not going to let us get away with it. Now listen, I'm going to say this, and I'll move on. I could preach a whole sermon on this. When we preach salvation through faith, we understand that Jesus did it all. I mean, from the beginning to the end. My salvation is not contingent upon me, and if it was, there's no hope. It's all on Jesus, and certain people hear that, And they have kind of been talked into thinking that that means that that's a license to sin and God just lets us get away with it. That's not true. This is a great example of this. And in Psalm 51, David didn't say, restore your salvation to me, Lord. What did he say? He said, restore the joy of thy salvation. He never lost his salvation. But listen, look at what it cost him. Listen, there are consequences for sin. There's consequences for sin in the life of... Look at what it did to David. He lost his firstborn son. Absalom turned against him, tried to kill him, took his kingdom, and Absalom died. One of David's overzealous generals, Joab, killed him. Whenever Absalom was riding through the countryside trying to find David, he got stuck in a tree. Caught him by the limb, he was sitting there hanging there. Joab, just a man of war, he went up and speared him through while he was hanging there and bragged about it. That crushed David's heart even though he would come after him, he was still his son. Remember David's other son, Amnon, who raped his sister, Tamar? I mean, we could just keep on going and going and going. It cost David everything but his salvation. And so to think that God lets us get away with stuff scot-free? You can forget about it, friend. Hebrews 12 and verse 7 says, If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement, Whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. That's Bible language. That's not even me. What he's saying is if you can continue in sin, unrepentant, unbroken sin, and continue to get away with it, he said, you don't even belong to me. You're an illegitimate child. You're a bastard and not a son. That's what he said. It goes on in the same chapter down in Hebrews 12 and verse 11. It says, now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them, which are exercised thereby." And so even the chastening of God should bring us comfort because it is another assurance that we are a child of God. Even in discipline, God was with David and gave him peace and protection. Now listen, before I move on, we have to get this right here. But as a Christian, There's two things that you never have to worry about, and that is losing your salvation or the discipline of God. Now understand this, I don't know if your parents ever did this. I was trying to think about if my parents ever did. I think they tried it once and it was just kind of weird. But have they ever come to you and said, now what do you think your punishment should be? You ever done that as a parent? I mean, I'm like, is this a trick question? But God doesn't do that. He's not going to come to you and say, Derek, I know you messed up, what do you think should be done about it? It's not going to happen. God doesn't do that. And I tell you why that's comforting, because we don't have to worry about beating ourselves up. Even God is in control of that. And there may be situations in our life, just like in David's life, where repentance was required. There's no doubt about that. Contrition and brokenness was required, but the discipline was up to God. As a pastor, listen, the longer that I'm in this thing, and the more Christians that I counsel, the more I am finding out that people think it's a Christian virtue to rake themselves over the coals every day of their life for things they may have even done years ago. That's not biblical. Listen, you're gonna have no joy in the Christian life at all if you think it's your Christian duty to continually beat yourself up over things that Christ was already beaten for. So it's a comfort to know that our salvation can never be taken from us. Jesus said in John chapter 10 that our Father is greater than all and no man is able to pluck us from His hand. That's a great comfort. But it's a comfort to know that when I mess up and when retribution is required, that's totally up to God and I don't have to think about it or worry about it. He's in control of that. So we don't have to walk around beating ourselves up every day. The Lord is going to deal with that. The Lord is going to deal with that. So you don't ever even have to think about it. Think about this too, this is so good. When it comes to his children, we will never be condemned by God as our judge, but we will be disciplined by him as a father. There's a huge distinction between those things. As a saved person, I will never stand before the Lord Jesus Christ in judgment for my sin. Christ already was judged for that at the cross. My sins were judged on Jesus Christ by God the Father at the cross. Jesus was punished for the sin that I committed. Jesus was punished for the bad things that we did. And so I'll never stand before God as a judge. I won't be condemned and I won't hear the gavel fall and hear guilty. We'll be disciplined. as by a father. Do y'all see the difference between those two things? There's nothing that I can do to not be the son of my parents. There's nothing that you can do to not be the son or daughter of your parents. And so, as SADP, we're adopting the family of God. We're made children of God. And so, those are some things that bring us great comfort. And so, we can take those things to the bank. The keeping of God, the character of God. Let me say this as I kind of wind down. For the child of God, there's two reasons that trials and suffering come into our life. There's sin and sovereignty. Sin and sovereignty. We think about the case of Job. It was sovereignty, was it not? It wasn't because of sin. In the life of David, it was because of sin. But even God was in control about how the after effects were handled. Even in this situation, it's not like God wasn't in control, and so we need to give it to God. Repent if necessary, and place our lives and trust in the hands of our Heavenly Father. I'm gonna read these first four verses again, and just soak them in as we come in for a landing here. Let's read it, Psalm 3, verses 1 through 4. Lord, how they increase that trouble me. Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God, say la. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill, say la. Now keep in mind, keep in mind, because of what Nathan has already said to David, he knows that this is the judgment of God for his sin. And yet even in that judgment, there was mercy. Even in that judgment, God didn't forsake him. Even in that judgment, there was grace. I cried unto the Lord my voice and he heard me out of his holy hill. Aren't you glad that he never leaves us nor forsakes us? So even in that situation, God had mercy. Now I know some of you are seeing this and you're saying, what is this word that keeps popping up at the end of some of these verses? The word Selah. The word Selah means to pause. And what's interesting is that the commentators kind of have a conversation about, was this written to the musicians? That at this point they need to stop and we keep singing this praise. Or is it for the reader to pause? I think it could be both, could it not? It's to pause and reflect upon what has been said or meditate. So I think about this, when you see Selah, think about this, Selah, stop and think about it. That's probably the best way that I can put it. And so, either way, it's a solemn reminder to really think about and heed what's being said. But one last thing to think about before I close, and I always wanna tie things into the gospel. I always wanna tie things into Christ, and this is certainly a great way to do this. And this is, if you want a great avenue of study in your own time, think about the offices that Christ held. Think about the examples of those offices in the Old Testament and also think about them in relation to the covenant. What are you saying, Pastor Vaughn? Well, Christ held three offices and holds three offices, prophet, priest, and king. And so you look in the Old Testament, for example, what we've been learning in our John study on Sunday night, we've been seeing that Jesus is a greater deliverer and a greater prophet than Moses. We've seen this over and over and over in John 6. Have we not seen that? And so you go back to the Old Testament, well, how is Jesus a greater prophet than Moses? Or you look at Adam and the Adamic covenant there. How is Jesus a greater than Adam? How was he as the last Adam better than the first one? Or in our case today, the Davidic covenant, David is king. How is Christ a greater king than David? And I mean, I'm sure that there has been entire series done out of this. But even in my reading again as I was going over this stuff this morning, there's two things that just really jumped out at me that I have not seen in the text before. But in the account of 2 Samuel 15 verse 23, We read that David crossed the Kidron Brook in order to escape his enemies, and he was fleeing from Absalom. In fact, it was so bad, it was so embarrassing, the Bible says that David was running up the Mount of Olives barefooted with his head covered. I mean, this is a shameful thing. He ran across the brook and got up to the mountains. Instantly, my mind went back to John. I said, wait a second, I've read this before. And we'll get there, but in John chapter 18 and verse 1, we find that Christ also crossed this Kidron brook. You know where He was going? He was going into the Garden of Gethsemane. And it's spelled a little bit differently because it's translated from the Greek, but it's the same brook. The brook Kidron. And so whereas David ran across the brook, he crossed the brook to get away from his enemies, Christ crossed it to go to them, to confront them, to be killed by them. That's a pretty amazing thought, isn't it? Christ is not only a greater prophet than Moses, he's a greater king than David. But here's something that popped out. I was almost done, I was just fixing to shut my laptop and this just jumped off the pages at me. But I, think about this. Talking about Christ being a greater king than David. Listen, David sent Uriah to his death in order to cover his sin. But Christ laid down his life that he might cover ours. Isn't that wonderful? Christ, is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And the reason that He is the lifter of our head is because of His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and the fact that He's coming again. I could say so much more about that. That's why He's the lifter of our head. Because in any situation, that is our hope. And even though David messed up, and even though it cost him so dearly later in his life, you know where David's at right now? He's with the Lord in heaven. With all of His troubles behind Him, not because He deserved it, not because He was good, but because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And friend, no matter how bad you've messed up, no matter how hard your trials are, no matter what you're going through, that is our hope. And that's why He is the lifter of our head. And even in sovereign suffering that God brings us to, or maybe suffering that's brought about by sin in the life of a Christian, the Lord can redeem and use all of that, and we all have the same hope, and that's in Christ and our relationship to Him and with Him. He's not going to leave us nor forsake us, and we all have eternity in heaven to look forward to. He is the lifter of our head. He is in control of our circumstances.