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All right. Thank you for joining me. Good to be here today at the cafe. Hope you’re having a wonderful day a wonderful week Here we have a remarkable Psalm Psalm 4. Oh this is one of my favorites one that I’ve been thinking about spending time on chewing the cut over Psalm 4 I’m going to read it. I’m going to give you some points from this Psalm. This will bless you. I am going to say that again. This will bless you beyond measure. Amen. Not from anything. I could say. But from God’s sweet. Holy Spirit. From the words that come out of the Psalmists writing here, it’s absolutely gorgeous, it’s beautiful, it’s magnificent, it’s artwork. It’s um, it’s practical. It’s applicable. I could go on and on but let me just get to it. Psalm 4 “hear me when I call. Oh God of my righteousness. Thou Hast a large me when I was in distress, have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. Oh, ye sons of men. How long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will he love vanity and seek after leasing say law? But know that the Lord of the set apart Him, that is Godly for Himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto Him. Stand in awe and sin, not commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still say law. All for the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say who will show us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Now has put gladness in my heart more than in the time that they’re corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For thou Lord, only make us to me to dwell in safety”. Oh, I love that Psalm. Psalm 4, especially that last verse is just remarkable. This in a nutshell. Is God’s love. It’s God’s plan for His people. It’s, it’s a prescription for living happy and joyful and rejoicing. Even in the hardest of times, Psalm 4 is just remarkable and it’s only eight verses but I could preach on this for I I got helped me but for years, I could preach on this for years. Uh but hey, we’ve only got 15 minutes. Amen. So let me get to it. Number one hear me when I call o God of my righteousness. So David starts here saying, hear me when I call O God, am I righteousness? Is God, the God of your righteousness? Are you living as God has taught you to live through His word? Through the scriptures. Are you living a life pleasing to God? If you are, then, you can say hear me when I call o God of my righteousness and David goes on to say thou hast enlarge me when I was in distress. Isn’t that true that when we’re in distress? When we’re in great, times of trouble that God Almighty, enlarges us, God Almighty helps us, and I can think of this in so many ways, thinking back to times, when I had nothing and I really was struggling. And I, I just said in my nothingness. God, I’ve been perfect and I’m broken and there’s nothing that I can do to fix it. You got to get to that point where you say, I can’t fix it. And guess what happens then? Oh man, when you give it to God and you say, God, I can’t fix it, but I’m just trusting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and you truly give it to Him. You don’t just make that profession of faith and go back to your sinful life, but you give it to him. He just starts to working things out and you say to yourself, well, I didn’t do anything. But gosh, this thing got worked out and that thing got worked out and I’m just feeling a little bit more joyful and I just have a little more pleasure in the simple things and I just have a little bit more love for the Brethren. I just have this wanting to share this burning desire to share this sweet gift that God has given me with others. And I just want to talk about eternity and how I’m going to be there with the Lord is your home, everything changes. You’re enlarged by God and it’s His grace that enlarges us in our distress. And God is more than willing to offer you that grace, if you haven’t been saved, but you’ve got to be saved. You’ve got to accept Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and then you also have to be living for Him to fully enjoy it. If not, you’re grieving the Holy Spirit. And then what do we see here? Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. You know, God’s mercy is what allows our prayers to be heard and how specifically through Jesus Christ, the great mediator, right? He is our mediator. So when we’re saved You got the Holy Trinity in action, right? You’ve got God the Father and we’re saved by God the Son. So God the Father sent God, the Son, right? Uh to do the finished work on the cross. Die for our sins, be buried 3 days resurrected gloriously. Uh, walk this Earth for 40 days and 40 nights was seen by many people over. Of 500, I believe. Okay, that work on the cross and he sent it up to heaven, is at the right hand of the father today that work on the cross is what saved us, what we accept, Christ’s savior. We then have our mediator. Like I said, He’s at the right hand of the Father. So, we’re praying, right? How do we pray? Well, when we get saved, when we believe on, Jesus Christ, in his finished work, on the cross, we have the Holy Spirit working within us and that Holy Spirit communicates with God, the Father through Jesus Christ, the mediator and that’s the Holy Trinity Trinity, that’s why we have God’s mercy. His Mercy is Jesus Christ, that is His Mercy. His Mercy is allowing us to be saved when our sin was so great. We should have been condemned, right? Because on our own, our righteousness is as dirty rags. It says dirty gauze pads. It’s has nothing good. But with Jesus Christ, now we have a position with the Lord. In fact where we are coheirs with Christ, it’s hard to believe we go from sinners, on the way to hell to, uh, royalty we to God’s children. Amen, to a having an eternal place in heaven. And that’s God’s mercy.
Verse 2. Oh, ye sons of men. How long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing say law, okay, verse 2, God’s glory to shame. So here David’s writing the first person who’s writing about God, how long are you going to turn God’s glory to shame through vanity? What is it? What is vanity, what are vain things? It’s improper use right think of like a bag. A girl buys an expensive handbag, right? She doesn’t need it. It’s an improper use the handbag was fine, but she got a very expensive handbag and it’s an improper use, you have a handbag that’s the function as something that’s supposed to get dirty and carry, uh, you know, diapers for your kids or carry your wallet or whatever. And now all of a sudden this expensive thing improper use, that’s a silly example but you get the idea of vanity vein things Uh, you know guys pick on the women here guys, sports cars. I love cars. I absolutely love cars but you have a real expensive car. That’s vanity, right? You have a job also becomes your life and who you are and your ego that’s vanity, all these vain things, they’re they’re shallow, it’s the improper use. And so through vanity, you brought God’s glory to shame, because we’re here to glorify God and through vanity, you’ve brought it to shame. In the word, leasing in verse 2. And how long will you seek after leasing right? Well, that means lying. deceitful, false liar, Psalm 5:6, is the only other place that this word leasing appears in the Bible. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing or lies. The Lord will uphore the bloody and deceitful, man, or the tricking man. Right? So that’s what we have there in, in verse 2. So we have here, um, basically God’s glory His righteousness, and then we have these bad things, people acting, unrighteous people, lying, and acting shameful. And so, what do we see here? Uh, verse 4. Our excuse me, verse 3, but know the Lord have set apart Him. That is Godly for Himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto Him. And so we have here, the inverse, so we have okay, hear me God, please you’re my righteousness, even enlarge in my distress hear my prayer. Then you have verse 2. Oh, sons of men, you’re turning God’s glory into shame. You love vanity, you’re lying and so forth. And then we have verse three, what’s the opposite of lying living Godly? And we have in verse 3 that the Lord has set Him apart that is Godly. The Lord has taken the Godly and said this little Remnant, the small group, their mind, their mind. Amen. What does that mean? That means that we’re set apart by God’s grace, for Him, to serve, for Him to live Him. With the, some of this translation, especially Paul calls himself, a prisoner to Christ other ones say bond slave. You know, the Lord will hear us. So we call unto Him because we’re set up apart, Proverbs15:29 speaks it perfectly. The Lord is far from the wicked but He hearth the prayer of the righteous, doesn’t it go in the way of the, the ways of the world which oh God hears, everyone’s prayers the same or God doesn’t hear anyone’s prayers? No, God is picking sides. God is saying if you’re living wicked, I’m not going to hear you and there’s tons of scripture on that and then He says, if you’re living righteous, I’m going to hear you and there’s tons of scripture on that. And so trust me, look it up for yourself, study to show you show yourself to prove unto God, Proverbs 15:29 says the Lord is far from the wicked but he hearth the prayer of the righteous. So when we are living for God, He hears our prayers. He enlarges us in our distress. Amen. Oh, that’s so good. He hears us, let me see here. Verse four, stand it all in sin, not commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still say law for his forest stand in. Awe, you know, we need to be still and know that He is God, we need to understand that He has all power that He hears our prayers, that in times of distress, He can resolve them, or if He’s bringing us through those problems, His ways are higher than ours ways, and His reasoning is good. His reasoning is perfect, there’s a reason behind it. Amen, stand in. Awe, fear Him, right, when we stand at all, when we’re in awe, you know, we’re speechless when you see someone, I remember I had a student one time and as a student in college kid, he was a great athlete. I didn’t know what would happen to him. He was a friend of mine, he went to the NBA, he played, he was a very high draft pick and everything. And I remember seeing him again, and all of a sudden that friend I could barely talk to him as a stuttering when I saw him because he was a celebrity. I was a little bit in awe, but how do we act with God? Do we just turn to Him as a last-ditch effort or are we in awe, of the almighty Creator, the one that deserves all our, awe, the one that deserves all our respect, the one that we should fear with a healthy fear and then the scripture says, commune in bed with yourself, how good is that we need to reckon who God is, we need to sit there and calculate it all day long. We’ll calculate how much money we have in the bank. We’ll calculate how many days of vacation we have or calculate how many days kids are at school and all. All that, how often do we calculate who God is? And what God’s doing? Because we’re seeing here in Psalm 4, God’s saying, trust me calculate look at who I am commute with yourself and who I am and what I can do, And then verse 5, offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. What’s our sacrifice of righteousness? That’s living holy Amen. It’s not easy to live holy sacrificing for righteousness is saying, I’m going to be sober. I’m not going to go to the bar. I’m not going to go to the liquor store. Sacrifice it for righteousness is saying, I’m not going to look at the dirty picture. Sacrificing for righteousness to say, I’m not going to gossip. I’m not going to hop on social media and gossip and do these things. Sacrificing for righteousness is saying, I’m going to live, holy for God, no matter. If I’m a teenager a college kid, I’m in school. I’m a senior Saint of God, I’m gonna live for Him. That’s a sacrifice that goes against our fleshly sin nature, but we are called to do that in verse 5, offer the sacrifices of righteousness. And then it says, put our trust in the Lord. That’s what all this comes down to. Who is our trust in? Who do we trust? And we trust man. Do we trust the world or do we trust God? Amen. We are called to trust God, we are called to trust him verse 6. There be many that say, Show us any good. Lord lift up the light of thy countenance or his face upon us. You know, there’s many in this world to say who will help us, there’s many that are distressed that, you know, the harvest is great. There are many that are broken hearted that need the good news. That Jesus Christ has Savior to need to understand that. This God, this God written about in Psalm 4 is real and He’s alive and He can save and He can change you and he can make you into a brave soul that doesn’t fear. When they go to bed that doesn’t have anxieties because they’ve given it to Him. And His glory is upon them through the working of the Holy Spirit, they need to hear about that. They’re saying who will show us any good in this world. How true is that today? And then verse, let’s see here. Verse 7, thou has put gladness in my heart more than in the time of their corn and their wine increased. What does that mean? That means that when we’re living abundantly, we have a lot of good things but it’s nothing compared to what God does for us. And in verse 8, verse 8 here, uh the result, the fruit I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For thou Lord, only make us me to dwell in safety. Amen. Only through God are we able to dwell in safety? What does that mean? That means that God is the one that gives us. A piece that gives us comfort. He’s alone is the one that we trust. He alone is the one that’s worthy. He alone is everything. And so we have to just praise Him that He’ll allow us to have that peace that surpasses all understanding. And it’s all through the loving nature of who God is. I hope you understand that today we’re not even going to have an outro today. I’m going to bring this all the way to the end of the message, because He is so good that I love Him. I can’t stop talking about Him. Verse 8, verse 8, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For thou Lord, only make us me to dwell in safety. It’s only by God’s grace read Psalm 4 especially verse 8, just read it over and over again when you’re going through hardships and you’ll be blessed, because He alone makes us to dwell in safety. Thank you for joining me. Amen. Take care.