Joy with Jesus
So in light of the psalms we’ve seen before, David’s situation in Psalm 64 is one that sounds familiar: David cries out to God for help against his enemies, God acts, and then there’s the result.
Psalm 64 includes the combination of human trouble and divine action, and then the reality that it creates. That’s a common theme in the Psalms. And so today, instead of us just digging into this psalm like we’d normally do, I want us to slow down and think about how we approach the Psalms as readers.
Psalm 64 is the psalm we’re looking at, but this morning we’re going to be more deliberate in looking at how we look at the Psalms overall.
And I think the best analogy for what we’re doing here comes from dancing.
Most of the time if you’re dancing you just wanna dance. You dance your heart out. But sometimes in dancing though, depending on the kind of dance it is, you need to slow down, count your steps, and learn the moves. It takes practice. That’s what I want us to do in this sermon.
When we approach the psalm, we’re taking three steps, answering three questions:
What does the text say?
Where does the text show us Jesus?
How must I respond?
This three-step approach goes, basically: Text, Jesus, Life.
Let’s pray and get started:
Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that he is our true prophet, priest, and king, that he is head and savior of the church, that he is the heir of all things, and the judge of the world. And thank you that before the foundation of the world, you gave us to him and you have made him our hope in life and death. This morning we worship Jesus, and we ask, show us his glory, in his name, amen.
1) What Does the Text Say?
The first step to ask is, What does the text say?, and we already got started here. I mentioned at the start that we can see three parts to Psalm 64 right away: there’s human trouble, divine action, and then the reality that it creates. Look closer at verse 1 for a minute and let’s track what’s going on:
In verses 1–2 David pleads with God for protection against his enemies (three verbs of petition: hear my voice, preserve my life, hide me). Then in verses 3–6, David describes his enemies in detail. Then verses 7–8 starts “But God.” This is where God acts. And in verses 9–10 there’s a result because of God’s action — all mankind fears and the righteous rejoice.
That’s Psalm 64. And at this level, in this first step, we just want to read well. We’re not thinking about application or what it means for us, we just wanna read the psalm on its own terms — the goal here is to slow down and understand what’s being said.
And it’s pretty straightforward: David is in a jam; he’s got enemies; he begs God to do something about his enemies. That’s verses 1–6. And we can make some observations here.
Enemies Described
These enemies are described as doing seven things in verses 2–6. Look at this. David says:
They whet their tongues
They aim bitter words
They shoot their word-arrows
They hold fast to their evil purpose
They talk about laying snares
They think they can do it secretly
They search out injustice
Now what’s interesting about each of these things is that none of them advances beyond words. This is all about intent and speech.
I asked the kids this week, How would you describe evildoers? They said: those who kill innocent people; those who steal stuff; those who hurt children, born and pre-born.
That’s what the kids said and all that is true, but now look at Psalm 64. The evildoers here are described only in terms of what they think and say. Their evil is first what they devise in their minds and spew with their words.
God’s Action
And David has asked God for help against them (in verses 1 and 2). And look what God does in verse 7. God responds in judgment — and it’s fascinating that in God’s response, we see four words repeated in verses 7 and 8 that were first said in verses 3 and 4: Tongues, shooting, arrows, and suddenly. Look at this. God turns the table.
Verse 3: the tongues of the evildoers is what perpetrates their evil; and verse 8, it’s their tongues that lead to their own ruin. Verse 4: the evildoers shoot ‘word’-arrows at the blameless suddenly; verse 7, God shoots his arrow at the evildoers and they are wounded suddenly.
Do y’all see those words repeated?
Now get this: notice that when talking about the evildoers, David says they shoot arrows (plural, verse 3). But God shoots his arrow (singular, verse 7). I asked the kids why the evildoers had lots of arrows but God only had one arrow. Hannah said, It’s because God never needs another shot.
See, we just wanna read the text and ask questions. What’s this text saying?
The Result
In verse 9 we see the result of God’s action. God has given the wicked over to their own devices, to their own ruin, and at the end of verse 8, “all who see them will wag their heads.” That means they shook their heads. Everybody who sees the wicked and what comes of them will shake their heads.
Then in verse 9 David says that “all of mankind fears.” God’s action has gotten everyone’s attention. All mankind — meaning, all peoples (which is setting up Psalms 66 and 67) — they see what God has done and they talk about it. They ponder “what he has done.”
And then in verse 10, David turns this into an exhortation. Beyond seeing and pondering what God has done, David says:
“Let the righteous one rejoice in Yahweh and take refuge in him! Let all the upright in heart exult!”
Rejoicing, taking refuge, exulting — “rejoicing” and “exulting” go together easily and then “taking refuge” gets sandwiched right in the middle. Our coming to God for refuge — our trust in God — is all mixed together here with our joy in God. David is not talking about a different thing when he says to take refuge, he’s talking about a different aspect of the same thing. To have faith in God, to trust in him, hide in him, take refuge in him, is to be happy in him. And we should be… that’s what the text says.
Moving to Application
See what we’re doing here? We’re reading slow, making observations and asking questions. We want to see what the text means. And then, of course, we want to see what this text means for me. What impact does God intend for this to have on my life? We call this application. How do I apply Psalm 64 to my situation right now?
Those are good questions, but we need a caution here: we should be careful not to run to application too quickly. Sometimes we can read a text, find a theological truth in the text, and immediately jump to our own lives — and the problem with that is that sometimes we can apply biblical truth to our lives without ever even thinking about Jesus.
And if we don’t think about Jesus then we’re not really understanding the meaning of the text because every text in the Bible is ultimately about Jesus. Now we might still find some wisdom in the text. It might still be helpful. But unless we’re thinking about Jesus, we are underselling the purpose of the Bible. Everything in the Bible ultimately is meant to show us the glory of Jesus, and everything in the Old Testament at least points to him, and so in order for us to make real application — in order to understand what the text really means for us — we have to see Jesus.
So this is Step #2.
2) Where Does This Text Show Me Jesus?
Now I’m calling these “steps” — this is “Step 2” — but I don’t want you to think we have to be super mechanical as if it’s like “read this way” and then “this way” and “then this.”
We want to learn the steps, but remember it’s dancing. And the goal at this point is to know how the text in front of us flows into who Jesus is and what he has done.
There’s a good new book I recently read about this by a Bible scholar and professor named Nicholas Piotrowski. He says the purpose of seeing Jesus in the text is to understand the “climatic meaning” of the text. He says the Bible overall is Christological — which means that the person and work of Christ is the unifying rationale of the Bible. The gospel is ultimately what brings coherency to the Bible in its entirety.
And so, get this: if the texts of Scripture are flowing toward Jesus and his gospel, then the application to our lives should follow that same path and flow through Jesus and his gospel.
He gives a helpful image: every text is the Bible, in some way, is flowing toward the gospel, and then real, full application flows through the gospel to our lives in all kinds of different ways.
Flowing Toward the Gospel
So the first thing is how is this text flowing toward the gospel? Where is Jesus?
In some texts it’s easier to see than others, but if it’s not obvious, we can get help if we expand our view a little and think about the wider context.
We first start with textual context — we wanna know how the words of this text fit together and within all the words of this particular book; and then we want to think about the canonical context — we wanna know how these words and this book fit within the Bible as a whole.
For example, when we read that David has enemies in verse 1, there are some important connections here to the Book of Psalms overall, going back to Psalm 2. Remember that in Psalm 2, the kings of the earth and powers of evil have set themselves against God’s anointed. God’s “anointed” means God’s Messiah (in Hebrew); in Greek, “Anointed” is the word Christ.
So Psalm 2 is about the Messiah, the Christ, and this is who God has promised will come from David’s lineage. That’s the big promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7. It’s the central promise leading into the Book of Psalms. God promised David that he would have a son who would reign as King forever, and so anytime in the Psalms we see the word “King” or “Anointed” we’re supposed to remember God’s promise about that Son. In Psalm 2, which is like a lens for how to read all the psalms, we see that the King and the Son are the same person.
And Psalm 2 says the King-Son has enemies.
So Psalm 64 is continuing that theme, and then that takes on even more depth when we remember that the story of the Son and his enemies actually goes back to Genesis Chapter 3. This is the wider context, canonical context.
After Adam and Eve sinned and brought the curse of sin on this world, God promised that in the future the Offspring of Woman would crush the serpent. There would be a Savior-Son to come, and God said there would be enmity between Satan and his offspring and this Promised Son to come.
Those words in Genesis 3 start a theme we could call the “drama of the Son” and it continues all the way through the Old Testament — from the hope of Noah, to the birth of Isaac and Jacob, to the story of Joseph, to Pharaoh’s attack on the firstborn sons of Israel, to the rise of Moses and God’s claim on Israel, to the judges and prophets to the choosing of David, to God’s promise to David that echoes all the way to the New Testament.
There’s always been this hope in a Son that would come, and that Son has always had enemies — Psalm 64 falls right in line with that. So before we read about David’s enemies and make it instantly about “our enemies” we first should think about Jesus’s enemies.
David, the King, the Anointed one, had enemies, and we know Jesus, the King, the Anointed One, he had enemies too. So we want to bring Jesus in view. We’re thinking about him.
To, About, With
And one thing that might help us when it comes to seeing Jesus in the Psalms is that we normally can see him in one of three ways.
Either the psalm is written to Jesus, about Jesus, or the voice of the psalm is Jesus. Sometimes it can be mixed together at different parts, but when we read, we’re thinking: is the psalmist here talking to Jesus, is he talking about Jesus? Or is the psalmist himself the voice of Jesus that we read together with him?
Is the psalm to, about, or with Jesus?
Well in Psalm 64 when we read about these enemies, notice again that their evil is described as speech and intent. The evil is what they say and devise, and so what about the enemies of Jesus? How are Jesus’s enemies described in the Gospels?
First, we see the scribes and Pharisees question Jesus (Lk 5:21).
Then they spoke to provoke him, “lying in wait for him, to catch him…” (Lk. 11:53).
They grumbled about him (Lk. 15:1).
The conspired against him, how to destroy him (Lk. 19:47).
They sought to lay hands on him, to put him to death (Lk. 20:19; 22:2).
They mocked him and muttered about him and vehemently accused him, and railed against him (Lk. 22:63; John 7:12; Lk. 23:10, 39).
That is how the enemies of Jesus are described leading up to the cross. So do you think Jesus would say of his enemies that they whet their tongues like swords…who held fast to their evil purposes…who talk of laying snares secretly?
You could say that the enemies of Jesus searched out how to do injustice, and they were successful. They were evil from the mind and heart, it came through in their words, and they accomplished what they set out to do.
The enemies of the King in Psalm 64 fit the description of the enemies of Jesus, and if Jesus ever asked for help against those enemies, then it’s his voice in Psalm 64 that we’re reading with.
And did God ever shoot his arrow at Jesus’s enemies?
We know that God did not stop the enemy’s arrows shot at Jesus. Because Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me” (Lk. 22:42)
But he was not.
The arrows were shot.
Nails in his hands and thorns his head,
the arrows landed,
Jesus was dead.
The enemies of Jesus killed him.
Except that… in the cross of Christ there was the truest turning of the tables.
The devices of the enemy were turned against themselves; they brought upon themselves a ruin worse than what they conspired, because in the death of Jesus there was the death of death.
On the third day, suddenly, with one shot, death received its fatal wound because Jesus came back to life, and through his death not only did he make many to be accounted righteous, bearing their iniquities, but he caused them to be more than conquerors, because now the enemy of death doesn’t destroy the hopes of God’s people but it actually ushers them into his presence of inseparable love and everlasting joy.
And when Jesus looked out before the cross and saw that, even in the anguish of his soul he was satisfied. And so for that joy set before him he endured the cross. Jesus knew a joy deeper than the universe; Jesus has gone there; and he’s bringing us with him.
In Psalm 64, in response to God’s action, “all mankind fears.” But in the last verse, David, the psalmist — and with him the voice of Jesus — looks out with an exhortation, really an invitation:
Let the righteous one rejoice in Yahweh
and take refuge in him!
Let all the upright in heart exult!
This is a calling…from Jesus, with Jesus.
Now, Step 3 — How must we respond?
3) How Must I Respond?
This is the question: How does application flow to me from this text through the gospel?
And it’s important that when we think about ourselves here we don’t think about ourselves in isolation. Don’t skip straight to us as individuals, but instead think:
How should the universal church — how should all Christians everywhere respond here?
How should our local church respond in light of our time and place?
Then — how can I as a member of my local church be part of what God by his Spirit is calling us to?
In Psalm 64 it’s straightforward. Our response is to rejoice, verse 10. That’s the exhortation, and we receive it as an invitation from Jesus to rejoice with him.
And this is an idea we actually see in Hebrews. In Hebrews Chapter 2, remember that Jesus is called the founder of our salvation. He’s our pioneer, our sanctifier, and Jesus is like us. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. Hebrews 2:12, Jesus says to God the Father:
“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”
That’s Jesus speaking, from Psalm 22, and do you see what he’s doing there? He’s leading us in praise.
Look, this is amazing. The praise that we give to God — the praise and joy that we have in Jesus is praise and joy that we have with Jesus. Which means, we never should just hear him as saying: praise me, rejoice in me — but it’s always: join me in my joy.
Hey, he doesn’t need our praise. He doesn’t need our rejoicing, and that’s our only hope that we can rejoice. The joy that Jesus calls us into is deeper than the universe. It’s from before the foundations of the world. It’s what’s behind everything we see. This is the joy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that was and is and is to come.
That’s why we can have this joy no matter what our circumstances are. Because this joy is as deep as God himself. It’s deeper than anything. It’s deeper than our pain.
Because we all have pain. Losses. Hurts. And sometimes, if we get this confused, we can think that our joy is supposed to cover over our pain, and suppress it.
We can think about it like a pie chart, and we can think that as long as we have more joy than pain and then we’re okay. But that’s not it. We can’t ignore the pain. We don’t cover it. Instead we drill down through the pain to what is most real and most true. We want to get down beneath the losses, beneath the cancer, beneath the disappointment, beneath the broken relationships.
We want to get down to what is most real and most true and there we find God who is full of joy. And it’s joy that Jesus invites us into with him.
There’s a little song I’ve been singing with the kids at home — and they’re gonna wanna kill me if I do this — but it’s a simple song and it’s Father Day, so I wanna teach it to you. It goes like this:
You give me joy,
down deep in my soul,
down deep in my soul,
down deep in my soul.
I think we should just sing that forever.
That’s Psalm 64, and that’s what brings us to the Table.
The Table
We are invited into the joy of Jesus with Jesus because he died for us on the cross. We remember his death here at this table. The bread represents his broken body, the cup represents his shed blood, and if you’re here this morning and you trust in Jesus, if you are united to him by faith, we invite you to eat and drink with us. Let’s give him thanks.
