All right, well, let's turn to Psalm 4 again, and we're gonna look at the first little part here. How many of you ever shot a bow and arrow? Anyone ever do that? Hey, now, that's a lot. Wow, I was not expecting that. I think I did it when I was a little guy. I haven't since. I think teenagers, those of you who are going to camp, will get a chance to do that if you would like to. You can either do paintball or bow and arrows. Paintball, you can shoot at each other, not the bows and arrows. But it is fun. It's fun to practice this. Arrows can be dangerous. You can shoot an arrow 200 miles an hour. Depending on the depths of iron or steel armor, it can actually penetrate that and cause damage below the armor. Of course, then it can sink right into flesh without any armor. And the way it's shaped, going in is easy, coming out is deadly, the way the arrows are shaped. It's still the choice of many hunters today. Not many New York City folks are hunters, but there are 10 archery ranges. I didn't know that. About 10 archery ranges throughout New York City that allow you, also some of them, to throw axes and practice that because you never know when you need to throw an axe, right? That's a skill that we all need to develop, I'm sure, for some reason. I don't think, well, you may need that in the subway, I don't know. But you just never know when you need to throw an axe. What's interesting is I think the arrow, especially in Bible times, was dangerous in a different way than an axe or a sword, because it was shot from a distance. So this was more of a high-tech implement of a weapon. You could harm someone from a great distance, whereas a sword, you need to be right with someone. And so this is why I believe the psalmist used it to describe something very painful, very painful. Psalm 120, verses one to four. In my trouble, I cried to the Lord and he answered me, deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you? What more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior. You think of the danger of an arrow is in its distance and it's deadly. And this is what slander is. It's saying things from a distance that harms and hurts. Such a cutting thing. When you're close to someone, you say something, you can actually parry back and forth, you can respond. And in one sense, you can even take it to heart. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. But this is different. It's shot from a distance, and it can be deadly. There's slight slander, slight slander, where you have just someone speaking a few things, tearing down someone from a distance, and it's not real, necessarily huge, mean-spirited, oh, Jim Bob eats or sleeps or walks or whatever he talks. But it's still a little negative. And it still hurts. It's still shooting at that person. Then it, from that spectrum, from slight, you go all the way to where it really hurts and it becomes lethal. Lethal slander. And this is when someone is wounded in their integrity. They lie decomposing in the field of life without understanding how did this happen? I don't even know who shot me. And all of a sudden I'm dead. This is cowardly, costly, and unchristian. And this is the type of slander that David was enduring when he wrote Psalm 4. He felt these wounds very deeply. He felt them lethally. Now he felt this often, leadership often has to deal with this. Those of you who are in leadership, you know, when you're up front, there's just things that will be said behind your back. And so, so too with David. A very outspoken leader in Israel's history, and the arrows hurt him severely. When Saul hated him knowing that God had chosen him as king he spoke against David repeatedly using sharp arrows But the the most difficult of arrows of slander came into David's life here in Psalm 4 When Absalom his son was speaking against him He actually you may remember the story Absalom killed his brother who committed incest with a sister, his sister, Absalom's sister, his stepbrother. And so it's like a twisted family. But David kicked Absalom out of the kingdom because of that. When Absalom finally comes back and David starts welcoming him, he kind of has this chip on his shoulder and he starts planting seeds of discord. Start slandering little by little. 2 Samuel 15, listen to this. Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate, and when any man had a suit to come to the king for judgment, Absalom would call him, hey, hey, come over here. Look, where are you from? Hey, I love that town. What are you coming to talk to the king about? And Absalom would say to him, see, your claims are good and right, but no man listens to you on the part of the king. See what he's doing? And then he probably goes and says the same thing to the opposite. He's like, you are good and right. No one listens. He's not really openly saying the king doesn't listen to you, but it's just this little backhanded, wow, what is it? It's a shame that the king's not taking up your case here. I really agree with you. Boy, I wish I was the judge. so there's this backhanded slander that starts small but by the time it's done there is a full-blown revolt. Absalom has turned all the leaders, not all, but many of the leaders of the kingdom against David and they actually kick him off the throne and you read an Sad passage, but you read of David walking across Gethsemane. The Garden of Gethsemane with tears, crying as he leaves. Absalom has overthrown him. And it's at this greatest turmoil in David's life that he turns to Penn and he writes this song. I don't know what you're going through, but few of us have ever faced anything to that extreme, right? I mean, it's no fun to be lied about. It's no fun to be mistreated, right? And all of us feel that to one degree or another in life. Someone takes you the wrong way, or someone snubs you, or someone just doesn't like you and you have no idea why. But this was compounded much, it's his son, the son he loves. It's political upheaval. He's lost his throne, his job. Everyone's thinking poorly of David. There's so many difficulties going on in David's life right now that all of us could just think whatever it is, whatever turmoil you're going through right now, it can be fitting under this umbrella of a son that is throwing you out of your house. And yet look at verse eight. How in the world is David able to, in this circumstance, God has not taken away the problem in verse eight. Verse eight, he is still sitting in the circumstance and look what he's able to do. What is he able to do? Yeah, he's sleeping in peace. I will lie down and sleep. And so this is our lesson. How do we get to verse eight from the introduction of turmoil of biblical proportions? the hardest event that David has ever gone through, and yet he's able to lie down in peace and sleep. This is what we need to get a hold of. This is what we need to learn. We need to find how to get to verse eight, okay? So we're gonna look at a few practical lessons that he gives to us on how to rest in any turmoil. There's five steps, but that's kind of the middle section of the text. that he gives to us here as we consider. First of all, request for rest, and then the verses three to six give the actual steps, and then the last two verses, seven and eight, give a description of what the rest looks like. But first of all, he requests the rest. I will actually just mention this, that beginning, if you look in your Bible, there's this, in a lot of the Psalms, you have these beginning phrases. And so mine says, for the choir director on stringed instruments, a Psalm of David. All right, so those aren't necessarily inspired, but they're helpful. They come to us through, really, thousands. sometimes thousands of years of history. And we read something of the occasion. Here's for the choir director, right? And so this would be someone who's in charge of the whole Levitical choir system. There were these ones called the eminent ones. 54 Psalms were written to these eminent ones who were given charge of the 4,000 singers. Can you imagine that? What a choir of organizing. And this one was especially for T.O. and Way, because it's for our guitar players, right? He says, for the choir director, on, and Pastor Andrew, on stringed instruments, right? So we get our string section involved in this psalm. And there's a lot of musical notations throughout the psalms, not just this one. So it's a Psalm of David, and he starts out with this grand call, oh Lord, Answer me when I call. So verse one, there's this request for rest from God. And then in verse two, there's a request to the ones who are hindering him. So first of all, he calls out to the one who helps him. This would be the Lord, right? Answer me when I call, oh God. A call to the helper. Answer me when I call to you, O God, my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. He calls to God and he finds the person of his help. Answer me when I call, O God, my righteousness. Answer me when I call, O God, my righteousness. This is the person of his help. This is where we all have to begin when we're going through that turmoil, through that trouble, whether it be internally, interpersonally, or internationally. We find in God our helper. He is the one who helps us. I think it's important here to recognize, he says, answer me when I call. He's calling to God and he says, God, who does he call God? Oh God, my what? My righteousness. Right, your righteousness is your acceptance. Are you meeting the standard that God requires? Right. I've never met the standard that God requires. And so he's able to start out from the first. And this is so important, especially when you are being accosted or people are speaking against you to recognize, you know what, my righteousness is God. God is my righteousness. And so we find that David is finding in himself not righteousness that he offers to God as, look at all that I did, God, but he finds that God himself is the righteous one who grants him right standing. David is praying on the credit of someone else and that someone else is God. Paul explains this in Romans 4 verse 6, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered, right? And so David starts out here the way all of us start out, and this is why we approach God every service, right? God, my righteousness, my right standing based on Jesus. David's in hot water. Someone's maligning him, and he knows in this case, he's done a lot of bad things, but in this case, they are wrong. And so he says, oh God, you're my righteousness. And this is really, I don't know all the details of this, but he says, I want 4,000 people singing this in the temple. Okay, I'm not sure, okay, but I kind of wonder if Absalom hears this in three weeks. Probably not, probably not. But what a surprise that would be, right? Three months later as they're practicing this psalm, and he's like, wait a second, that sounds like my dad. And it confronts him. God, my righteousness, you have relieved me in my distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. And so he looks at the person of his help, but then he also looks at the past of his help. You have relieved me in my distress. And we go through these difficult times, we think back to the things that God has done to us in the past. You've relieved me in my distress. Distress there has reference to being in a tight spot. in my narrow, in my very narrow times. I don't know if you know in life sometimes where you're like, I just feel like I'm against two cliffs here, and I'm so stuck, and the cliff above me is scrunching in. Or maybe you're on a very tight subway, and you pack in there, and it's just so tight, and then you know how there's train traffic ahead of you, and it just stops. And you're like, how long am I gonna be stuck in this tight spot? Isn't that enough to drive you crazy? Some people do go crazy in that, right? And then it's really bad. But this is the way life gets, where you feel like, in life, I'm just so stuck. Lord, please open the doors, or turn on that green light, and let's get moving past this. But you're just stuck there. You're just stuck there. And then as God opens the doors a month later, or two months later or two years later, sometimes we forget about that time where I was stuck. And so we need to recount it back to the Lord. We need to write it down in a journal and say, you know what? I was so stuck. I was in the narrows. And the Lord heard me and relieved me. And based on that, I could say, God, give me grace. Give me grace and hear my prayer, not because I deserve it, but because you are my righteousness. Help, Lord, help. Then he goes to the hinderers. He calls to God for help. At the very beginning, he's gonna end with the same prayer. Verse two, O sons of men. All right, so from the help to the hinderers. O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach? How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception? And this is why I think it would be really interesting if he actually gives it to the song leader and they actually learn the song and they actually sing it in the temple. Total conjecture, but Absalom would have been woken to a very interesting hymn sing at that point. Oh, sons of men is not your normal word for man. It has reference to royalty or like mighty men, those of wealth and power. So it really is focusing in on perhaps Absalom or those who helped him overthrow David and his son. Oh, sons of men, how long will my honor, this position that was given, turn to reproach as they reproach him? How long will you love this emptiness? And this is what's happening. They're just pursuing an empty goal of overthrowing him and then deceiving. They're saying things that are lies about him. And you feel this. At times, people do lie against you. They misrepresent you. And so where do we go with that? Well, we do confront them, but we also talk to the Lord, our helper. And so David says, listen, everybody, listen to this, listen to this. And then he gets to the steps. So he calls out the hinderers, he calls to God as helper, and then he shares with us six steps that get us to rest. And it's almost like he's calling everyone to listen. So it's almost like it's his pulpit song, and he's saying, everyone gather round. Those of you who are overthrowing me, and those of you who are with me, and God who I'm serving in the presence of, everyone come forward here, and I'm just gonna tell you how I can rest. and how you can rest. And there's six steps involved. You wanna know how to rest this week in turmoil. Or maybe next week you'll face a really tight spot. How can you go to sleep at night? How can you get internal soul rest in that difficult time? You gotta follow these six commands, okay? Six quick commands. In the Hebrew you read them, there's just six commands. And at the end, he's resting. He's resting. So let's look at them. They're just six practical things I need to do every time I'm in a tight spot, I'm in turmoil, and I still need to rest. The first one's pretty obvious. Verse three, what's the first one? Know, you gotta know something. The first one is, but know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. Know something, first of all. It's during our difficult periods of life that we forget so much of our theology and we listen to the deception of the devil and of our flesh. The Lord never changes. I need to know in the storm that God is the one that makes the waves, rides the waves, and keeps me safe. David is still riding the waves. He's not just praying for God to take away the circumstances so now he feels good. He's in the wilderness. He's still riding the waves. He's in the shattered wreck of a household from life's earthquake. in the storm-tossed boat and he looks out and he says, know this, everybody know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for himself. And so David's like, you know what, I just need to make sure that I'm walking with God. This is the introspective part. Know that the Lord has set apart, has taken and set apart the godly man to rest in his boat. Godly, that's a good word. It has reference to chesed. Chesed is a verb we should all know in Hebrew, right? We know a word for love in Greek. What is that word? Agape, right? Well, this is a similar one in Hebrew that we should all know. Chesed. All right, and it has reference to covenant loyalty. It's someone who is loyal to their promise, but it's with a kindness, a compassion. So kind covenant loyalty. And this is repeated over and over and over. God is loving to you. He expresses his love to you in the promises that he made to you in Jesus. A person who is like that is godly. I am constantly fulfilling my promises and my obligations to other with kindness, even when it's difficult. I'm expressing love. I'm acting in love. And that is the person that God is setting apart. Know this. But he goes beyond that, not just knowing that, but the Lord know that the Lord hears when I call to him. We need to recognize and latch upon this thought, God hears my prayers. God hears me. Sometimes it feels like the heavens are brass, that my prayers are not getting up and the rain is not getting down. But I need to know that he hears it. He hears it. Call upon the name of the Lord today. Cast your burden upon him. He will sustain you. The way some people pray, I doubt whether they actually think that God is listening. We are speaking to our creator who loves us in Christ, our deepest friend, our companion. We are praying, we're talking to him all day long, every day. Oh God, help me. Not as a stranger that you haven't talked to for six days. We come to him and we leave our care there and and if you understand that he's hearing you it has an emotional effect upon your spirit But if you don't know him you've never talked to him then it is so stressful But if you know your father, you know that he takes care of you, and he knows all this stuff Then you say Lord Jesus wake up. You know he's been awake this whole time and And so, first of all, know that God has set the godly man for himself and that he hears when we call to him. Step two. So know, you gotta know these two facts. Step two is really fascinating. What is step two here? Tremble. Okay, so you wanna find rest, you need to tremble. Quake. That's the word quake. know something, and then you're supposed to quake. Tremble, but don't tremble so much that you're sinning. You're in this difficulty. That person is maligning you, or, you know, whatever, you name whatever turmoil it is. David was facing that one, but all of us can put ourselves in the turmoil. You are to tremble. This could be referring to two different things. It might be that David is calling out those who are All right, these hinderers that we're talking about, verse two, it might be that he's talking to them, these slanderers, and he's saying, you tremble, because God's gonna get you, and stop sinning. That might be it, but as I look at all of these, where he's saying, trust in the Lord, it seems as though he's not talking to them, but he's talking to those who are in the difficulty. And so this would be the idea. You are going through it, you're shaking. You're just shaking because of life's pressure, and that's okay. It's okay to be affected by this onslaught. It's what you do with it. You can tremble, you can be affected. I believe there is a trembling as we come before God, and therefore we do not sin. This is the person who gets hit by the fastball on the arm. and they are gonna tremble, and they may storm the mound. That would be sinning, I think, according to the rules, at least. So you have this effect where someone hurts you, and it shakes you. He's like, that's part of it. When you go through a difficulty in life, you're shaken, you cry to God, and that's okay. Don't act like it didn't happen. It's just, what are you gonna do with the shaking? Come before God, and you shake before Him and say, Lord, help me. And don't sin. Don't get in the flesh with that. Right, and there's some disagreement there, because this is hard to translate, and so many different folks, actually. This week, as I was finishing this up, I recognized that I've preached this Psalm before. So I'm gonna go back and listen to it. I wonder what I said at that point, but how I took this word. Different translators take it different ways, but it's either those two, but it's the same idea. It's the same idea, tremble and do not sin. And then it's so important because we go from trembling to resting, what's in between? There's this next command, meditate in your heart. Meditate, know, tremble, meditate. This is the word speak, but as he's saying speak in your heart, it's translated meditate. Right? And it's in quiet. It's like you're trembling, so you go into your inner chamber, where it's just you and God, and it may be a bed, it may be a closet, and you're bringing this thing before the Lord, and you have to start talking to yourself. Talk to your heart about the Lord. Meditate. Speak to yourself the truths of the Lord. And this is what Christian meditation is. We talk, you know, people talk a lot about meditation. Meditation, Christian meditation, is not the absence of thought or trying to get everything emptiness. That's not it at all. It's filling your mind and your soul with the truths of God. This is the secret. This is the big one. As you are inside your inner chamber, and this is the night song. Actually, the next Psalm is the morning Psalm. This is the ninth Psalm, so he's talking about trying to fall asleep. When you're trying to fall asleep, this is where you go. You have to go to speak to yourself about what is true about God. Who he is, what he has done. You say, the loving kindness of the Lord endures forever. That phrase occurs 42 times in the Psalms. That's a good one to tell yourself as you're trying to be quiet before him. And so you say something like this, God, your loving kindness, your chesed, your covenant loyalty, what a joy. God is faithful in his expressions of love to me. And yet it endures forever. And so you focus on one, love. You focus on two, the Lord. You focus on three, endures forever. And all of a sudden, you think about all these different aspects of who God is in love. The Lord, his name, enduring forever. And so you're talking to God now, and you're saying, God, I praise you that if I had my hope in politics, or in a specific person, or even in my health, or my wealth, or anything else but you, it would change. But Lord, you never change. And this is telling me that your love is going to endure forever. Right? These CEOs who are trying to live forever, how silly, right? Because that's what, they have all the money, right? So whatever, you buy Twitter, right? You can buy Amazon, whatever, but you can't buy life. You can't buy eternal life. And God just says, I love you forever. When the pages of history close, I'm still gonna be resting in the love of God. And that's where your mind goes, and that's Christian meditation, and that's healthy for your soul. And as you do that, what's the next command? You're quiet. You're still. You just sit still and you let that sink in. So what I think is really helpful is to get from the first part of verse four to the last part of verse four, right? The first part, you're trembling. Oh God, help me. And then you start meditating on who God is. And by the end, you're just still. You ever just take time to be quiet? Just to sit still before God? He wants that. He wants you to come into his presence, think about who he is, and then you just rest there. striving, be still and know that I'm God. You're acting as if this all depends on you and all your quaking and trembling. Come before me, look at who I am and be still. And so you look past the circumstances, resting in who God is, you meditate on him and you're still, you're satisfied, you're resting in God. Fifth command, and I'm gonna take five and six together as one because they're interrelated. Step five and six, offer the sacrifices of righteousness and trust in the Lord. And this gets back to that first verse. There's this tie, all of this, to sacrifice and God providing sacrifice. As we're on our bed, we're focusing on the gospel. the fact that Christ has atoned for me. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness. If you are thinking that is talking about, oh God, look at all that I did that was right today, so you need to be good to me, then you're a lost, a lost Pharisee. It's a pure indication that you're a lost Pharisee. Oh God, look at how good I am. You know what, Jesus talks about that, right? I tithe. I do this, I do that. Not the place you want to be. You want to be at the end of that verse. Trust in the Lord. You are my righteousness. I accept your sacrifice and actually I offer to you in my place the sacrifice of Jesus. We just need to do that in our prayers. Remembering again the cross. Remembering every day the cross. I'm never closer to God than at the foot of the cross. And so I come once again to his bleeding side and I find peace and love in Christ, acceptance. Even though the world throws me out, Christ has brought me in. And I sit at his table and I offer to him trusting in him, trust in the Lord today. Elizabeth was poor and poor of health, lady in Scotland in the 1800s. She was known throughout her village as a godly one, as a chesed, filled with a life of loving kindness. She and her sister sold her horse and buggy to provide for the needs of the poor around her. The people in town called her the sunbeam as a testimony to her Christ-like character. But she knew it was not those things that brought her close to God. It was only the cross. I love her poem. We sing it often. We need to sing it more. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I gladly take my stand, the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land. That's our home within the wilderness, our rest upon the way from the burning of the noontide heat and the burden of the day. His cross, I take its shadow to be my hiding place. I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face. Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss. My sinful self, my only shame, my glory. All the cross. We find in this gospel sacrifice a trust in the Lord and a rest, an eternal rest for our soul. This is what this looks like. Okay, so you got this. This week, you're gonna have a hard time. You may not. You may have great days all week long. But if you have a hard time, let me encourage you to think through these verses. Know, quake, tremble, meditate, be still, offer sacrifice of Christ, and trust in the Lord. And this will describe you a description of rest. Many are saying, who will show us any good? Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, oh Lord. So even during this, again, the dilemma is still there. These people are saying, how is any good gonna come of this? David, you're still in trouble. You're still thrown out of your kingdom. You're still drooling on the hillside. What are you telling me about trusting in the Lord? You're still in this horrible situation. He says, Lord, lift up your countenance upon me. So the dilemma is staying, but look at the light of his soul. His delight stays. He's able in this difficult situation to say, you have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and new wine abound. Those folks that had vanquished him, they may have had all of the things that he once had, all of the trinkets and whatever, but he's like, you know what, I have gladness in my heart. And it's a gladness of this kind more than when their grain and new wine abound. They had a great week in the stock market, it abounded. And I'm really in a bad place. But you know what? There is more gladness in my heart in God than when their new wine and their grains abound. Because he's satisfied in the Lord alone. This is not manipulating a false self-image, mental gymnastics. This is just finding his delight in something greater than our circumstances. And I would say this is the danger of saying Christianity is coming to God so that you can have health and wealth. And this is what many churches preach. What David is saying, even in the absence of my health and wealth, I'm able to find more delight in God. And this is so important for all of us, because we will face times of difficulty. If your faith in God is based on your health and wealth, Fault, faulty. It needs to be in God himself and finding delight in him. And so there's this connection that we have more delight in God, gladness in our heart, than when, by contrast, someone else's finances are good or life circumstances are good. And because of all that, verse eight, he's able to conclude, in peace, I will lie down and sleep. In peace, I will lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Our safety and security does not come from anything else but the Lord. And even when these waves come, when the earthquake hits our house, of our life circumstance, we can find, even in the rubble, rest in our Lord God. I wonder if you've ever found this rest, right? Kind of the center of it is that step three. Christian meditation, finding in the quietness of your heart on your bed as you're trying to go to sleep a delight in God that goes beyond and above all of life's circumstances. Doctors say we need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. If you are 18 to 64, And some people take advantage of their bodies and try not to do that, and then you get this ill effects. You get slowed thinking, reduced attention span, worse memory, poor risky decision-making, lack of energy, mood changes, feelings of stress, anxiety, irritability. All that has to do with lack of sleep. Spiritually speaking, I wonder how often you have rested spiritually. If physical sleep has those negative effects, I could just say, if you have never rested spiritually, you are really in for irritability, lack of memory, and so let's all, poor risky decision making. And so let's all this week find the joy and discipline of finding our rest in God. Let's pray. Lord, we ask for grace for this. We need your spirit to teach us this. Lord, we know it's just very, very simple in one sense, choosing to think through what's true about you, chewing on phrases in the Psalms, as David did here, But Lord, the anxious thoughts fight against that. And even now, perhaps, someone is fighting that. Give them grace to, even in this moment, rest in you. Find their soul rest. A little bit of sleep before you, spiritually. that they would be able to stop striving, stop striving, and find rest. In the quiet moment of, just have two minutes here, I'll be standing in the back lobby, be happy to pray with any of you who need to talk to the Lord about this, but I would really encourage you to practice this. Right now, meditate on these things about the Lord. Even just take that one, the loving kindness of the Lord endures forever. By God's grace, stop all other thoughts about the week and just spend one minute drinking deeply on that phrase. In a moment, we'll close in prayer.