Sermon for MHBC (5 September 2021). You can listen on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or our website. Live at 11:00am on Sundays. Also available as a podcast here or by searching “Monument Heights Baptist Church” in your favorite podcast app.
I was having a conversation with a pastor friend last week and he was sharing with me something that I think most pastors are sensing right now. He said, “My congregation is just struggling under the weight of things right now. They don’t see God.” I had already been reflecting on Psalms 9 and 10 for this morning’s sermon and I shared with my friend that I thought these two psalms capture that feeling perfectly.
It does seem that we are all being crushed under the weight of the world right now. And I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic. We have numerous things to be grateful for, but that doesn’t negate the reality that many of us feel like we’ve been run over by an emotional semi-truck. Our inner person feels frayed. Our spiritual life seems sapped.
A few years ago, psychologist Larry Crabb wrote, “No one will conclude that God is good by studying life. The evidence powerfully suggests otherwise. Belief in the goodness of God and the worship that naturally flows from this confidence depends on the revealing work of the Holy Spirit.”[1]
Only the Holy Spirit’s work of opening our eyes to Jesus can bring us to a place of hoping against hope. In spite of the tragic brokenness of this world, there is hope.
Now you may be wondering why we are taking two psalms this morning. The fact is that these psalms belong together as one. The most obvious reason for this is that together they form an acrostic poem. An acrostic poem is one in which each stanza begins with the next letter in the alphabet. Here I mean the Hebrew alphabet of course. So for example, verse one begins with aleph—the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Verse three begins with bet—the second letter—and so on. Some of your Bibles may even indicate that in some fashion. (This is a broken acrostic, meaning a few letters of the alphabet are missing.) To get to the end of Hebrew alphabet, we need Psalm 10 as well because Psalm 9 ends with kaf and Psalm 10 picks up with lamed and takes us through the final letter tav. So Psalms 9 and 10 are really one poem.
Let’s look at the first two verses in Psalm 9: I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
David starts with praise. This is very important because as I’ve said these two psalms look at the world and see great injustice, much evil, and a seemingly absent God. Again, to quote Larry Crabb: “If left to our own way of thinking, every one of us would conclude that God either is bad or doesn’t exist, that no God in this universe is good enough to be trusted with the things that matter most.”[2] But look what David says. (1) I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart. (2) I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. (3) I will be glad and exult in you. (4) I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. These four statements are critical for understanding the whole of Psalms 9–10. David is going to stare down the question: Where is God? And in these first two verses he shows us the path through the dark passage of doubt and despair.
Let’s think about each of these points. First, he gives whole-hearted praise. The Hebrew verb has more of a sense of praise than mere gratitude. It may even carry the sense of confession.[3] In any case, this conveys a turning toward the LORD with the whole heart—aiming our affections at Him. You might even think of it as a protest. We are in a world that often seems bleak and where God’s presence sometimes seems absent, where unspeakable tragedies occur. Turning to the praise the LORD in spite of all of that is an act of protest against the darkness, the powers and principalities, the evil in the world.
I love the scene in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, where Christian and Hopeful fall into the hands of the Giant called Despair. He locks them away in his castle known as Doubting Castle. There they are starved and beaten. At the counsel of his wife, the giant urges Christian and Hopeful to take their own lives. Then, Hopeful reminds Christian about the true King, the Lord of the heavenly city. Hopeful agrees that their condition is terrible but they must fix their eyes on the Lord of the heavenly city. Then Hopeful reminds him of the way they have been preserved in the past.[4]
This leads us to David’s second statement. I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I love this word recount because it brings to mind the idea of taking a record of what God has done. It is so critical for us to remember what the Lord has done. In the OT, one practice to remember the deeds of the Lord was to raise a huge stone as a sort of monument to the Lord’s power and provision.
But more important than physical objects is our own recollection of what God has done. As Christians, it is necessary to keep the gospel—that Christ has died to free us from sin, Satan, and death—ever before us. Every day we should repeat the gospel to ourselves. We do this, by the way, when we pray in Jesus’s name. We are approaching the throne of grace not through our merits but through the merits of Christ, who has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. This is also why the Lord’s Supper is so important. It is a tangible rehearsal of the gospel.
The third thing David says is “I will be glad and exult in the Lord.” There is joy and gladness here. Again, we have to remember our affections. They need a daily stirring for the Lord. That famous question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that I’ve shared before is once again helpful here. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. To enjoy Him forever. David speaks of being glad and taking joy in the Lord. One practical application of this is singing, which is David’s fourth point.
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. His joy in the Lord bursts forth into songs of praise. In Ephesians 5, Paul speaks of singing as an aspect of being filled by the Holy Spirit. The way through darkness and despair is by singing. Do you remember what Paul and Silas do in the book of Acts when they are locked in prison? They prayed and sang hymns to the Lord (Acts 16:25).
Now on what basis can David do these four acts of praise? Verses 3–4 give us the answer. The LORD will establish him. The LORD is righteous and just. His character can be trusted and He has promised salvation. Verses 3–4: When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence. For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment. David appears to be looking forward rather than backward in this case. And that’s really the whole basis for vv. 1–2 and for the Christian hope. The whole basis of Christian hope is looking forward to the moment of consummate redemption in Christ.
And the certainty of this redemption is in the Lord’s might, His gracious character, and His action in raising Christ Jesus from the dead. Look at how we see His might, His sovereignty, in vv. 7–8: But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. Despite all appearances, the Lord is on His throne and every single nation on the planet belongs to Him. It may not look like it, but Richmond belongs to King Jesus.
And this psalm celebrates the gracious character of the Lord. Look at vv. 9–10: The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you. Again in v. 12: For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted. We will see this same declaration at the end of Psalm 10. The Lord is a good king and His justice will prevail.
And then finally there is His action in raising Christ Jesus from the dead. We have a clear indication of that in v. 13: Be gracious to me, O Lord! See my affliction from those who hate me, O you who lift me up from the gates of death. In this verse, we hear the voice of the greater David, the eternal King, Jesus Christ. He is the one who was raised from the gates of Hell. David is speaking only as a shadow of the resurrection that will be won and secured by Christ. And this is the basis for our hope. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, apart from the resurrection, we remain in our sins, but with the resurrection, we know what to expect. We know that when Christ returns, bodies will be raised. This is the Christian hope and it’s why so many Christian cemeteries face the East because they believe that Christ will return in the East and so they are prepared to be raised. What we do at Christian burials is deeply significant even if it doesn’t seem so, even if it seems that all hope is lost. We lay the body to rest, affirming that that body will be raised imperishable and immortal with Christ. It will be raised just as He himself has been raised.
But all this talk about death does remind us of the problem before us. What about when God seems absent? Let’s look at the opening of Psalm 10. Verse 1: Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Where is God in the hurricane? Where is God in Afghanistan? Where is God in divorce, drug addiction, or terminal diagnosis? David laments the world around him in vv. 2–11. He laments those who use their power to destroy and harm with no fear of God.
Then David turns our attention to one of the practices at our disposal. It is prayer that offers us refuge for the present moment. He begins that prayer in v. 12 and runs through v. 15. The Christian view of things is expressed in biblical prayer. And our view is not an oblivious to suffering or a mere change of perspective. Nor is our view unbridled optimism. The Christian view is a realist position. I like the label applied to the great public theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He has been called a pessimistic optimist.[5] Christians don’t bank on human ingenuity to fix the ills of the world. We know sin runs too deep. But neither do Christians fall into despairing pessimism because it is our faith that provides the answer.[6] Because we believe God sits over all things and has acted in Christ, it is possible for us to ascertain meaning in this world despite the evil of the world.[7]
Niebuhr pointed to Job 42 to illustrate the Christian view: I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know … therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes (42:3, 6). The verse is all about mystery, but in that mystery there is some ultimate meaning, as Job learns. The psalms counsel us in holding the tension—perhaps we might say paradoxes, such as being a pessimistic optimist. We believe in the complete power of God while also believing in His complete goodness. We recognize the real presence of evil while also recognizing the reality of judgment and grace.
All of this is forward-looking, which is precisely how Psalm 10 concludes. Look at vv. 16–18: The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. The Psalm began with searching question of God’s presence, but it concludes with the resounding affirmation that the Lord will right every wrong.
We read from Luke 1 this morning. That’s a famous passage used in Christian liturgy. But it’s all about God keeping His promises. And how did He keep them? Through Christ. God’s action in Christ is the decisive blow for sin, Satan, and evil. God’s action in Christ is the certain victory over all the evil that runs rampant in our world. Every time we look at the night sky, as Psalm 8 showed us, we can remember how all things have been subjected to Christ. Every time we take from the bread and the cup at the table as we’ve done this morning, we are proclaiming the victory of Christ. Even your attendance at this service is deeply meaningful. It’s not really about what you get out of it. That’s consumeristic. It is about the affirmation that Christ is King and we are witnessing to the presence of God in a world that often seems devoid of His presence.
[1] Finding God, p. 86.
[2] Ibid., p. 87.
[3] See HALOT and LXX.
[4] John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, pp. 129–33.
[5] Robert McAfee, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr, xi.
[6] See Niebuhr, “Optimism, Pessimism, and Religious Faith,” in The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr, p. 5.
[7] On this point, Niebuhr bears some resemblance to Kierkegaard and his faith as a “category of despair.” See Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs, trans. Alastair Hannay, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 168.