Psalm 3 'the Glory and the lifter of my head" (Psalms in the Key of Life: Song of Hope amidst real life).Psalm 3, Romans 8:38-39

Have you ever had a night when your troubles and woes have kept you awake?  Something big and daunting, that has got you in its grip and it is shaking you and won’t let go, or a whole lot of little things that have somehow come together… like a pack of small yapping dogs nipping at your heels, that won’t give you rest. You find yourself tossing and turning in the dark, time seeming to slow down so there is no end to the darkness. Your usually comfortable bed seems to have turned into a bed of rocks and your pillow into a stone.  No this is not an infomercial for a bamboo pillow or a new mattress topper… rather on night like that there just does not seem to be an answer and a way forward, and exhaustion and tiredness compound the problem.

Psalm 3 has the feel of being from the midst of one of those nights… in fact we know that it is from one of those nights, we are told which night the psalmist has in mind… It’s the first psalm to have a superscript introduction that tells us it is a psalm of David, it’s one of only thirteen psalms in which that introduction places it in a specific occasion in David’s life. This one tells us that is from ‘when David had to flee from his son Absalom’. The story of which is told in 2 Samuel chapter 15-17. David is old and Absalom plots to become king, gathers an army and comes to Jerusalem to kill him, so David has to flee, become a refugee once again. It’s as if all his problems are now compounded. Some of his advisers go over to Absalom’s side, Mephibosheth, Saul’s nearest living relative whom David had looked after, stays in Jerusalem hoping that now the people will give him the throne. AS David flees he is cursed  Shimei one of Saul’s relatives, telling him that the LORD is not going to help him, that this in fact may be God’s judgement on David. After a day like that you could imagine that David would find it hard to sleep. But David turns to the LORD… I wonder if this isn’t part of 2 Samuel 16:14 where it says after he had reached his destination David refreshed himself… in prayer and in faith as well as with food and drink and rest. While this prayer may come from there its beauty is that it speaks for all God’s people facing trouble and difficulty. It is a prayer of finding hope in the character of God, the LORD’s faithful love, power and presence.

This spring we looking at selected psalms in a series we are calling ‘Psalms in the key of life: songs of hope amidst real life”.  Psalm 1 and 2 form the  introduction to the collection of psalms, focusing on God’s blessing, they speak of God’s blessing for those who build their life on God’s word, and God’s blessing on the those who put their trust in God’s anointed king and son. Then it’s interesting because right after that upbeat introduction Psalm 3 starts a series of five laments and prayers for help amidst trouble. As Old Testament scholar Walter Breuggermann says "its gives voice to the note of realism that is prevalent in the psalms”, that attest to the historical vagrancies, the trials and troubles, that assail even the king who is under divide promise”… “But they also attest that in such a world of trouble, where neither scriptural assurance nor divine promise makes one immune from threats, that there is a God to whom one may turn in Hope...The reality of God is as real as the reality of pain and suffering”. Songs of hope amidst real life… My Daughter Bethany’s favorite verse John 16:33 sums it up well for us when Jesus says “in this world there will be trouble, but do not be afraid, for I have overcome the world.”

Psalm 3 is broken into three sections, each ended by the  Jewish term, ‘selah’ which acts like musical direction and appears 71 times in the psalms.

Verse 1-2, focus us on the psalmist’s troubles. Like all three sections its starts with the psalmist proclaiming the name of the Lord. Here the Psalmist begins to pour out his woes. The word ‘many is used three times, to denote that the psalmist is being assailed by many people from ever side. The imagery used is one of being embattled surrounded by your foes who are pressing in for the kill. I like watching rugby, if the psalmist was a kiwi he might have talked of being passed the ball and as he started to move forward being meet by the opposition forward pack and finding himself at the bottom of a ruck.

But at the heart of the psalmist woes is the fact that he is being told that “God will not deliver him”, it is an attack on the very nature and character of God, on all the psalmist know of God and God’s goodness. It is as if the psalmist enemies want to strip him of any hope.

There are times when we can feel that God has forgotten us, or that God has closed up shop and gone home for the day, and fallen asleep in front of the TV. We can focus on the problems about us and loss sight of our Lord and saviour.

Then there is that selah, that rest that change of tune perhaps… and the second section v.3-6 changes the focus… with the words “but YOU, LORD” the psalmists gaze changes from his problems to who God is. He makes four assertions about God, things that he has learned from God’s dealing with his people in history and also his gracious dealings with the psalmist in the past.

You are a shield around me. In the midst of being embattled and having his enemies push in for the kill, that God is his shield. The shield mentioned here is the small round shield designed to protect a soldier in a fight while they can parry and respond with their own sword. But the psalmist sees her that God as a shield surrounds him completely. Psalm 125 picks that idea up on a national scale and says “as the mountains surround Jerusalem so the lord surrounds his people”. It picks up the whole idea in Psalms of God being a refuge, not to allow us to escape from the world but to face the world, knowing God’s presence with us.

My Glory. The psalmist realises that his own strength and his own power and ability is not enough to defeat the situation he is in, but he comes to realise that in actual fact it is God whom he look to for strength and power. The psalmist comes to realise that he is dependent on God. He might look back and see how Israel had been bought of slavery in Egypt not by their own strength or Power but the LORDs. David would look back and see the LORD, helping him against the giant Goliath, and other battles and realise it is God’s strength not his own.  AS Paul says in the book of Philippians which we looked at last month “ I can do all things’…not in his own strength… but through him(Christ Jesus) who strengthens me.  

The ‘lifter of my head’. This image comes from warfare again in the ancient world. A conquering king would make the vanquished kings bow down before him and he would place his foot on their neck, acknowledging his victory over them. But also as one bows before the sovereign in humility the king could also raise a person’s head up to acknowledge they have dignity and honour. The psalmist sees his dignity and honour coming from God, not himself. It is reflected in psalm 23 where David says “you anointed my head with oil in the sight of my enemies”. For you and I from beyond the cross and resurrection we hear Jesus words I no longer call you servants but friends… The affirmation from the beginning of John’s gospel that we have been adopted as children of the Lord most high.

“I call out to the Lord, and he heard me from his Holy mountain”, the affirmation that God answers prayer. Often when we face troubles it is as we look back and see what god has done in the past that it gives us strength to trust for the present. David when facing Goliath talks of God being with him as he faced the lion and the bear who came to attack the sheep, because of that he can trust God now.

As the psalmist has realised what God actual is like and what God has done, he actually has confidence in God in the midst of the situation he is facing and so with that confidence he is able to find rest and sleep and wake refreshed in the morning because it is God who sustains him. You even get the affirmation of the confidence even if ten thousand come against him he will not fear. 

Garth Gilksen, the drummer for the worship band Rend Collective, talks of going through a deep depression. He said the root cause of that was being aware of things he didn’t have, he saw friends and others getting ahead and having the seemingly perfect life while he continued to struggle and wrestle. As a friend told him comparison is the thief of Joy. In response to that he began to focus on the blessings he had in Christ… going back to what the gospel says we have in Christ… sight for our spiritual blindness, life even in the face of death. In that God lifted his head and gave him rest.

Then there is again that word selah and the tune again changes.

In verse 7 with this renewed confidence and a good night’s sleep, the psalmist calls on the Lord to arise and intervene on his behalf. To deliver him, from his enemies. We might not be comfortable with the violent imagery used here, of striking the jaw and breaking the teeth. But they come from seeing his enemies as wild animals that have him in their death grip. When I was younger I loved reading Jack London’s books, and in white fang, white fang is stolen, brutalised and forced into dog fights. He wins all his fights until one day a bull dog Cherokee is put up against him Cherokee gets a bite on the skin round his neck and won’t let go and slowly strangles the life out of white fang. Then a saviour steps into the ring, Jack come into save the dog. He tells the owner of the bull dog to call him off or he will break his jaw and teeth to set white fang free. Jack then nurses white fang back to health and teaches him to trust and love again.  This is the image used here, the psalmist calls for God to come and break the grip of the problems and enemies that assail him.

It is the same cry and the same confidence that we can have. That God is the one who is our strength and our dignity, who will come and be involved in our situations and bring his redemption and salvation.

The psalmist finishes by asserting in direct opposition to the taunt of his enemies that God is the one who from whom deliverance comes. Not only deliverance but God can be trusted to bring wellbeing and blessing to his people. It’s as if the Psalmist turns and looks down through history to all God’s people and to you and me here today, as face the troubles and problems that would try and strangle the joy and the life and dignity out of us, that we too can trust in the Lord to be our shield, our glory and the lifter of our head, to hear our cry and to answer us from our of his holy mountain.

In fact that is our experience. The word used for deliver here is the same root of yeshua, ‘Jesus’ God has answered us from his holy hill, God has delivered us through the death of Jesus Christ, to forgive our sins and bring us into abundant life with him.

God has indeed arisen, God raised Jesus to life again and sin and death are defeated, their grip on our life is broken,  the kingdom of God has come and while we face trouble we can rest and trust in God’s unfailing love in Christ Jesus. We are going to celebrate communion today and that reminds us of that saving grace, God’s presence and the assurance that we are with and in Christ and he will come again to set all things right.

Paul brings that home in the reading we had from Romans we had today. That there is nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing, not death, not physical things or spiritual…nothing. We can rest assured in that, and as it says in Isaiah 40 those who wait on the lord will renew their strength. In that we have hope in that we can find rest we can put our trust in God to deliver and bless.

Psalm 2: God's soverignty, God's Son and God's Blessing (Psalms in the Key of Life: Songs of Hope amidst real life)

here is the audio of this sermon from Hope Central September 21st part 1 and part 2 


I’ve never experienced a coronation. Queen Elizabeth 2 came to the throne in 1953. I know some of you here will remember it, you may have seen it on the news reel or listened on the radio. But it was the year my parent’s got married and I wasn’t born till a decade later.

I do have this vivid almost surreal recollection of seeing the investiture of Charles as the Prince of Wales in 1969. It would have been the first thing I would ever have seen on TV. I was five and we must have gone to some ones place to watch, because we didn’t get TV till 1972, for the Munich Olympics.

I think my children will see at least two coronations in their lives, and I think that they just maybe times for the nations in the commonwealth and for our own nation of some upheaval, and change. It will seem the natural time to have the debate over whether to sever the ties with the monarch and become a republic or stay in the commonwealth. I fear it could be our messy Brexit like moment.

That gives us a glimpse into the background to Psalm 2, a royal Psalm which scholars see as being part of, or at least drawing some of its words and images from  the coronation of a Davidic king, among the nations that may have been subject to Israel thinking this was their time to break free and be independent.  It speaks of the true king in heaven, the LORD, appointing his chosen king, as his son, on the throne. It contains the words of that king acknowledging God’s true sovereignty. It finishes with a warning to the nations to accept God’s chosen king and a beatitude: a declaration of blessing for those who find their refuge in him’.

 By the time the psalms were compiled, it would have taken on a very different meaning. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile into Babylon in 532 BC, the affirmation that the LORD was king would have spoken to the nations who thought they themselves had ultimate power, and it encapsulates the hope that Israel had of God’s sovereignty and God’s messiah, a king like David coming to set things right again… to rule over the nations of the world. A hope and a promise that  Christians from an early time, by the fact it is quoted in a prayer in Acts 4 and the reading from Acts 13 we had today, saw fufilled in the person of Jesus Christ. A hope that we too have amidst the seemingly chaotic churn and blur of history, a hope that looks forward to a future fulfillment…as it says in Revelation 11:15.A time when ”The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah and he shall reign for ever and ever”. A hope that we can find refuge in until that consummation.

We are working our way through a series called “psalms in the key of life: Songs of hope amidst real life”, looking at selected psalms. Psalms that speak of trust in, and reliance on God amidst the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, deep dark valleys and high mountain tops of life. That lead us in  giving thanks to God for his constant love and faithfulness. That proclaim our hope is in him. Last week we looked at Psalm 1, which speaks of how an individual can be blessed by mediating on the psalms, on all of God’s word. A Psalm that is seen along with Psalm 2 as the introduction to the whole collection. Today we are looking at the second part of that introduction that takes that individual blessing and looks at it on the larger scale of what happens nationally and internationally. The two are held together by starting and finishing with a beatitude of how one can find blessing, as an individual by hearing and putting into practice the word of God and in the midst of what happens around us by putting our trust in the sovereign God and his Chosen king and son. So the psalms speak to us individually and corporately as God’s people, to find our blessing and hope in the LORD.

Verse 1-3 speak of the nation’s conspiring together to throw off the rule and reign of God. We are used to seeing international summit’s where national leaders gather together to deal with this issue or that crisis, and that is what is envisaged here. The nations are plotting and planning to walk away from God. It’s a parallel on an international level of the wicked and sinners and mockers in Psalm 1 who chose to walk away from God and his word as the wisdom they need to sustain them for life. Commenting on this Psalm, Gerald Wilson says ‘In an age that glorifies independence and freedom we often find ourselves on the side of the nations…Our society would have us believe that true happiness comes through personal freedom” we think of God’s rule as heavy shackles and fetters that stop us from becoming what we want to be… However   when we come to realize as it says in Romans 8:15 that it is not slavery but adoption as God’s children, it is loving family ties not imposed oppression then we find real freedom in Christ. Gerald uses the illustration of marriage, which some call ‘the ball and chain’ and others realize is the liberation of a faithful loving relationship.

In verse 4-6, God responds to the nations rage. It is a declaration of God’s sovereignty. We see God laughing, the combined power of the nations is comic and laughable compared to the true power of God, who created the whole universe. At the time of King Solomon, when Israel was at the height of its powers, this may have been backed up with military prowess, but it still rings true even when Israel found itself subjugated to the empires that rose and fell throughout history. AS it is still today God is the one who rules and reigns in history and nations and empires rise and fall at his command and rebuke. Kings and leaders, law makers and governments need to remember they will be called to account by a higher authority.

But that sovereignty is also seen in God’s moving in history. His rule and reign was to be reflected in the king of Israel, the Davidic kings, and Israel’s mission was to show the justice and goodness of God to the nations. It was God’s purpose in sending Jesus Christ, to see his kingdom established on earth, it is what God is doing through his people, the church, now as we pray ‘thy kingdom come’ and as we meditate on God’s word, live it out and see it impact and transform the world around us. It is God’s sovereign purpose that people will know the justice and peace of God in this world.  Amidst the swirl and seeming chaos of history we know that God is working out his purposes and plans.

Then in verses 6-9, God’s chosen king, the anointed one steps into the scene. The Davidic king or the messianic figure declares, not their own right to rule, but because of their relationship with God, that they will rule.

It’s quite a significant passage because for the only time in the psalms do we get the idea of the anointed one, God’s chosen King being associated with son-ship.  In ancient times Sonship meant not only being adopted by a father into a family, but also the responsibility to reflect the values and traits of the one who adopts them. The Davidic kings were to rule in a way that reflected God’s justice and mercy, as a way of showing the world and calling the nations to come and worship the LORD. But they are words that point us to Jesus Christ as God’s only begotten son, the one in whom John’s gospel tells us ‘ no one has seen God, but the one and only son, who is himself God and is in close relationship with God has made him known”.  God’s kingdom has been inaugurated, or begun, by the coming of Jesus Christ, and we are to be ambassadors of that rule in how we live and as a church so that people will see the goodness of God and come to worship and serve him, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

v10-12 serve as a warning and a call to the nations to serve the Lord. To be wise and see the rule and reign of God and his messiah as a positive, the same way as the Individual in psalm 1 sees the word of God as a reliable life giving water source. The same warning and blessing is in this psalm as in psalm 1 that the way leading away from God leads to disaster and destruction, but leaning into kiss the king and finding our refuge or putting our trust in God is the way to know blessings.

The picture of kissing the son, is like nobles and kings coming to acknowledge a new king. To kiss his feet was a way to acknowledge his power over them. To lean forward and kiss is also the root of the word in psalms we have for worship. In Matthew’s narrative of Jesus birth we see the wise men from the east doing just this, it is a foreshadow of the gentile nations coming to a saving knowledge of and worshiping Jesus Christ as Lord and king.

How does this psalm then speak to us, as God’s people today.

Psalm 2 serves as an introduction to the Psalms, the two Psalms together remind of that God speaks and acts and blesses both the individual and us corporately as God’s people. It speaks to us as Christians from beyond the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God’s word and the focal point of God’s moving and acting in human history. The psalms are like those road signs on the way north counting down the km till you get to Whangarei, as we read and meditate on the psalms they are a sign post that point us to Jesus Christ… That source of living water, God’s chosen King (messiah) and son. 

The Psalm also reminds us of the sovereignty of God. It is easy to get concerned and confused and worried by all we see around us, nations heading in different directions, the movement of our western society away from its biblical basis, its Judeo-Christian foundations, and feel a growing anti-Christian sentiment,  but the reality from Psalm 2 is that God is in control, and sovereign. In Acts 4 the disciples face persecution and opposition for the first time from the religious authorities in Jerusalem and they respond in prayer, quoting Psalm 2 acknowledging the nations will rage and revolt against God’s rule, but also acknowledging that they serve God’s messiah Jesus Christ, and it tells us the place where they met shock and they were filled afresh by God’s Holy Spirit, his assuring presence and power. The same presence and power we know in our lives as well.

The psalm speaks to us of God’s missional nature. God’s desire to see all nations come and know his merciful rule and reign, to acknowledge his Son Jesus Christ as LORD. We saw that in our reading from Acts 13 where Paul quotes this psalm to call people to faith in Jesus Christ. It under girds for us Jesus call and commission on the church… All authority in heaven and earth is given to me, therefore go and make disciples in every nation, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you…

It also calls us to live with a different loyalty and priority because of God’s sovereignty. For the early Christians to affirm that Jesus was Lord and to declare his good news was a very political statement, it said that things should be Done Jesus way, god’s way, in the face of a society that was declaring ‘Caesar is Lord, and proclaiming the benefits of the good news of that, in roman law and culture. It is still a very political statement for us today… Shane Clairborne, who started the community ‘the simple way’ in Philadelphia's poorest neighborhood,  has written a book called “Jesus for President”. It is Claiborne declaring like Psalm 2 does that the kingdom of God is not to be confused with the western dream and consumer society, but is a call to live a radically different life. One which has lead him to be imprisoned for feeding homeless, standing on the stairs of the supreme court to oppose the death penalty and more recently a tour of the country with an anvil, beating hand guns and other weapons into garden implements. Living counter culturally, living with Jesus setting the agenda.  

Finally, like the nations and kings we too are to find our refuge and shelter in serving and worshiping God’s chosen king, Jesus Christ. That refuge is not an escape from the world, but rather a call to radical involvement trusting that God has us and is with us in all of life’s circumstances, as we will see as we look through the psalms. It is a call in the words of Jesus to put first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, to kiss the son… Jesus who has been coronation was the cross, whose kingdom has broken into the realms of humanity with his resurrection, and who will come again to set all things right.