In Your Distress Call Out Of The Lord And He Will Give You Peace

The Old Testament reading today is the 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

New Testament is in 2 Corinthians chapter one, verses three through 11.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who

comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction

with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation.

And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure

the same sufferings that we suffer.

Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also

share in our comfort.

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for

we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself and did

indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to

make us rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.

He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us.

On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf

for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Open your Bibles to Psalm chapter four, please.

Psalm chapter four.

I know Pastor Tim comes from a more mild climate than Michigan, but

where I come from, canceling church service for a little bit of a dusting of snow, you'd be called yella, so.

But you know, we'll see what happens.

All right, Psalm chapter four.

Let's read the text together.

To the choir master with stringed instruments, a Psalm of David.

Answer me when I call, O God, of my righteousness.

You have given me relief when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?

How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?

Selah.

But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself.

The Lord hears when I call to him.

Be angry and do not sin.

Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent.

Selah.

Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord.

There are many who say, who will show us some good?

Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord.

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.

In peace, I will both lie down and sleep.

For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

O God in heaven, what a beautiful morning it is before us, God.

With the snow, with the beauty of the different landscapes that you give us throughout your different weather patterns, God,

it's amazing to see just how much you are a beautiful God.

And we see it, your glory revealed all throughout creation.

I'm just thankful that you have given us all sorts of different ways that we can enjoy you here in this creation.

Lord, I pray that our eyes, our hearts, would be attentive now on your special revealed word,

that you would use it as a means of grace in our souls, that it would help us to turn from

our sin that so often plagues us, and help us to see Jesus

more in a greater way.

Lord, I'm so thankful that you use everything for your glory, even sin, that you can even cause sin in our lives

to cause us to turn away from it and see Jesus more clearly in light of that sin.

I'm thankful that you can bring dirty things and make them light and make them clean.

We praise you for that.

And so let our hearts be attentive now in this moment.

There are so many distractions in this life, God, and so I pray that you would supernaturally help us in our time of need.

Thank you, Lord, that we can cry out to you.

Thank you that you hear us.

And I thank you that you come to our aid in such a divine way.

We praise you this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, Psalm 4 here, I want to divide it into three sections.

We'll see if I can get through the whole thing.

That's my endeavor, but I'm not gonna force it.

But the three sections I want to be in your mind right away before we even get into anything, I

want to label it out right away.

Verses one through three will be the first major section.

And I'm calling it crying out to God and assurance of being heard.

Crying out to God and the assurance we can have that we are heard.

And the importance here is in light of your distress.

So in light of your distress, crying out to God and the assurance that we are heard when we cry out to God in our distress.

And verses four through five is how you are to act in light of your distress.

Okay?

And then the last section is six through eight, the happy result of peace in light of your distress.

If you notice a major aspect running through that is our distress.

In light of our distress, certain things can happen to us.

Okay?

We can handle it in a certain way.

And I want to remember how we started in Psalm 2, how we kind of looked at what I call

a meta -narrative.

It's a narrative above the narrative.

It's a narrative that transcends your own personal narrative.

And that meta -narrative in Psalm 2 is what?

Is the fact that there's conflict between the world and between the world and God and his Christ and the

Messiah, right?

That is the overarching narrative of all of history.

That is what's going on throughout all of history is this conflict between the world and between the

world and God, right?

God has a Messiah, an anointed one, that he is establishing and the world hates it and they work

against it.

You remember we talked about that quite extensively in Psalm 2, especially in light of the coming of Jesus,

right?

That is the overarching meta -narrative that we have throughout all of history.

And you see, we remember the conclusion of that great conflict is that, and you

must kiss the son.

Remember, don't fight against the son because you will be judged and he will win.

Do not be found after the ways of the world, but be found kissing the son.

That was the meta -narrative.

You must individually kiss the son.

And I think Psalm 4 is harking back to that and saying, now this is the life of the one who has kissed the son.

This is the life of the one who has submitted to Christ Jesus.

This is the life of the narrative of the individual who has, in the meta -narrative, submitted to

the one, the Christ, the Messiah.

I think as you, just as a side note, as you approach theology, and every one of you

need to approach theology.

That's not just a pastoral thing.

As you approach theology, as you study God, as you study your word, as you do these things,

you need to have both aspects in mind as you approach.

You need to have an understanding of the meta -narrative of what's going on in all of scripture.

What's the whole thing doing?

And then you have to have your own narrative of how does this apply to me?

Your own life needs to connect to the overarching themes of scripture and what's going on in life.

If you don't do that, then your study, your theology is gonna be either very, very dry and

lofty, or very, very personal and just flat out full of lies.

What I mean by that is if you only have a meta -narrative mindset, the overarching theme of what's going on in

scripture, you'll view it as a big academic process.

You look at it as like a scholar and that's it, but you won't look at it through your own narrative.

Where do I, where am I in this?

Where's my own story in this?

So if you only view the big story, you'll just become a big academic with a big head, lofty ideas, but you would

have no idea how your own narrative plays its part.

But you see, I think the problem today is most people look at scripture not with the grand scheme of what's going on with Christ

and his rule and his kingdom, but they look at it in a very specific, my own narrative.

Where am I here?

And they don't care about the bigger aspect.

That's when you get into feelings, that's when you get into, you don't really know the truth of what's going on.

Biblically, you just care about your own self in the scriptures.

We need to grab ahold of both, okay?

We need to know that there's a great big meta -narrative going on, and my narrative in my own life is in tune with

this.

It's connected with this, and this aids you as you study scripture and as you grow in

the Lord.

We need to have both aspects going on.

I think Psalm 2 is a major meta -narrative of what's going on, but then we see Psalm 4, it's an

individual who has kissed the sun.

And we can see the issue going on here.

Well, before I get there, notice it says to the choir master with stringed instruments,

a Psalm of David.

I want to say something very quickly about that.

A Psalm of David, you have who it's written by, David, but you see that it was meant for worship

when the saints gathered, okay?

The choir master, and the singing together, right?

So it's not just a story about David, although it is.

It's not just pertinent to David, but it's pertinent for all the saints of God coming together in worship.

And so therefore, it's pertinent for us.

And the way you should really look at Psalms is by and large, what's going on is you have the writer of the Psalm, a lot of times

it's David, but you see the fulfillment is in Jesus, and in that fulfillment, it

applies dramatically to us, his saints.

And that's a lot of times what's going on in the Psalms.

You have the particulars of the writer itself, the life circumstances, but a lot of times we can see the

fulfillment in Jesus, and in that, since we're in Jesus, since we're the ones who kissed the sun, it's deeply

intimate with us as well.

And so we can see here, this is meant to be sung.

It's worshipful as the saints gather.

It's a Psalm of David.

It doesn't say the circumstances directly, nor is it, I think, too important to know.

But nevertheless, let's look at the nature of the Psalm, what's going on in it.

We can see that, as I already said, the Psalm is crying out to God.

Look at verse one.

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness, you have given me relief when I was in

distress.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

You see, this is someone who is deeply distressed, and it's sandwiched there with answer me when I call,

hear my prayer.

This is someone who is in deep distress, and so what he is doing is biblical.

He's going to God with his distress.

Answer me, O Lord.

It reminds you of being a child, and you were in great distress.

It was such a comfort to know that your parents would answer you, right?

It was such a comfort that you know that as you cried out to your parents, they would come and they would help you.

You were dependent upon your parent, and it felt good to be in dependency upon your

parents.

Well, that dependency never goes away as adulthood.

That's supposed to lend itself into this understanding that you are dependent upon God the Father, upon our

eternal God who cares for us.

We are distressed people, and when we are in distress, we are meant to show our dependency to

cry out to God, O Lord, I'm distressed, answer me.

We are not to go anywhere else but our God.

We are not to find rescue in anything else but our God.

We are to cry out to our God.

But we see it's not just a psalm about being distressed and calling out to God in our distress, but

it's about an assurance that our God hears.

It's not very useful or helpful to cry out to someone and you have no assurance at all that they're

even listening or they even care.

But notice that this psalm is not just about crying out to God, but it's that we can be assured that our God

hears us.

Look at verse three when it says, when the psalmist says, but know that the

Lord has set apart the godly for himself.

The Lord hears when I call to him.

And the question we need to ask ourselves, if in our distress we are to call out to God

and cry out to God and we can be assured that he hears us, then how

can this assurance happen?

How can we know that when we cry out to God with our issues, with whatever's going on, that he actually

hears?

And this isn't just a he listens, he hears it, but this is like he does something about it.

Look at verse eight, in peace, in verse eight of psalm four, in peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you

alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

This is a hearing of he actively does something.

So how can we be assured that in our distress that we are facing today, right now, in this moment,

when we cry out to this God as we should, how can we know for sure that he hears and he does something?

Well, I think he gives the answer here in this section of the psalm.

Look at verse one again.

It says, answer me when I call, O God, of my righteousness.

You have given me relief when I was in distress.

And I think what he's doing there, and this is just one aspect of how we can be assured, is he's pointing to history.

He's pointing to something that's already happened in the past.

He says, I have been in distress before and before you have given me relief.

And so therefore, I can conclude that this time I'm in distress and you'll give me relief now.

So part of the assurance that we can have when we cry out to God in our distress is that you have given me relief

before.

It's happened before and it'll happen now.

Now you might say to me, and see, the thing about being in distress, you know, we all know what we're talking about

here, anxiety, rising up within our hearts, right?

Into the very being of who we are.

Do you know what we tend to do in that moment?

We tend to lie to ourselves.

In fact, if you're anything like me, the first thing you'll do is you'll lie to yourself.

I say it quite often, you lie to yourself more than anyone else ever has and ever will.

In our distress, in our anxiety, the first thing we do a lot is lie to

ourselves.

We need to remember that.

I'm prone to lie to myself in this moment, right?

And it's very important to remember what has happened historically.

God has taken care of me before.

I've been in distress before and he has taken care of me.

Now you might say to me, what if he hasn't?

What if he has not done that?

What if I don't have that historical record?

Well, I can say to you that if you are a born again Christian, if you are a saint sitting before me and

you have the spirit of Christ within you, you can actually say this has happened to me, no doubt.

Because if you remember, if you think about it, what is the very nature of you entering into the kingdom of Christ?

What did that look like?

Well, it was an understanding that I'm a wicked sinner, that I sin and I am in rebellion

against God.

And that created what in your heart?

Good feelings?

I hope not.

It created distress in your heart.

Oh my goodness, I am a wicked sinner.

What hope is there for me?

Where do I go?

I am distressed.

And what did Jesus look to you at that moment?

What did he look like?

He's the one who came and rescued you from your distress.

He answered you before in that distress, didn't he?

So the very nature of coming into the kingdom of God is that you were distressed over your sin and

Christ answered that distress beautifully.

He has a history of doing it.

And he did it in a complete way.

And so we can say with the psalmist here is that you have given me relief when I was in distress before.

And that's in a total way.

That's in a eternal, salvific way.

If he can do it in a total way like that, certainly he can do it in any kind of distress you're facing today.

If he can do it through salvation, forgiveness, and bringing you into an eternal state of joy and happiness,

certainly he can help you today with your distress.

So how good is it?

How important it is to remind yourself of the gospel of Jesus Christ, how you have taken care of me before.

Or totally, surely, you'll take care of me in this moment right now.

Takes something very important.

It takes something of you not lying to yourself, me not lying to myself like I want to, but

rather speaking truth to myself, preaching the gospel to yourself.

Now if you have not ever entered in the kingdom the appropriate way like that, then I suggest to you in your

distress, in this moment, repent and believe upon Jesus Christ.

He will answer you.

He will answer that call.

So I think that's the first assurance that we have here, right?

In my distress, I cried out to the Lord.

He heard me.

How do I know this happens?

Because he's done it before.

He'll do it now.

But I think there's a second point of assurance we can have, and I call it foreign righteousness.

We can be assured that God hears us in our distress because of a righteousness that he gives us.

I think we see that littered throughout Psalm four, verses one through three.

Look what he says.

Let me get a drink first.

He says, answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.

O God of my righteousness.

He is the God of his righteousness.

He is sovereign over his righteousness.

It's not a organic righteousness.

It's not a righteousness of the own, of the person who has produced it of himself, but it's God has given me this righteousness.

It's a foreign righteousness.

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.

God is the sovereign of your righteousness.

You are not righteous of yourself.

You are righteous because he has placed it upon you through Jesus Christ.

You can be assured that God listens because you are righteous, and you are righteous because God has given you that

righteousness.

Look what he says later on in verse one at the end.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer, right?

God is a gracious God to listen to your prayer.

God is a gracious God to hear your prayer, and you are righteous because God is a gracious God,

giving you what you don't deserve.

He even says in verse three, but I know that the Lord has set apart the godly

for himself, so therefore the Lord hears when I call to him.

You see, this is the Lord setting apart the godly for himself.

We can understand this holistically in all scripture that God has sovereignly chosen people for salvation.

He sovereignly sets apart people for salvation, and he placed on them righteousness when they cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it's because of this righteousness, he knows that God listens to me.

Whenever we know that we have been made righteous through Jesus Christ, we know that the Father will listen to us based off of the

foreign righteousness we've received in Jesus Christ.

But to the one who is not righteous, God does not, we see, hear their prayers in that way, does he?

No, God hears the prayers of the righteous, not the wicked.

And so the only avenue left for the wicked to do is to cry out to Christ Jesus to make them righteous.

And so we can be assured that God hears us based off of the righteousness that we have been given by Jesus Christ.

What happens, though, before I move on from that point, when we don't live like that?

Do you think you're gonna be assured that God's hearing you?

I don't think so.

When you claim Jesus Christ, his righteousness, but yet you're living in sin, do you think you're going to be assured that God

is hearing you?

I don't think God's gonna allow you to do that because he loves you too much.

And so don't think for a moment that you can claim Christ, claim his righteousness, live in sin and be like,

and God's still gonna hear me.

There's gonna be a disconnect there.

God loves you too much to keep you in that position where you feel completely secure in that.

No, he's gonna discipline you into repenting of whatever sin's causing you to be in the way so that,

again, you will feel that assurance of, you'll hear me, you hear me when I cry out.

So does that mean we need to be perfect?

No, but it does mean that we need to recognize the righteousness God has given us and live in keeping with that

righteousness.

That is, we repent of the sins that come up in our hearts and we give them to Jesus and we are given assurance

through that beautiful process.

So in our distress, it is perfectly all right to say, I know the Lord hears me because he

has made me righteous.

And in my righteousness, I can cry out and I know he hears me.

There's assurance there for you, beloved.

What's interesting about that, how can we be assured is because of this foreign righteousness given to us.

It's interesting because that righteousness that plays out in our life because of Jesus is actually the reason for his

distress.

Let me say that again.

In this Psalm, we see that he cries out to the Lord, he knows he hears him because of his righteousness,

and it's because of that righteousness which is what's causing his distress in the first place.

If you look at verse three or two.

Oh man, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?

How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?

Selah, rest upon us.

Selah, just to approach that word.

It's not clear 100%.

I don't think it is at least of what it means.

It's probably some kind of musical term, but it seems to mean something like pause and rest upon that truth right

there.

Rest upon that.

Take a moment and meditate upon that truth right there.

Oh man, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?

How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?

What's going on here?

This psalmist is living in righteousness.

He's living obediently to the promises of God, right?

And because he's living in righteousness, the enemies of God hate him for it.

His honor of living in righteousness is being turned to his shame.

They're twisting it with lies and vanity.

And so he's being assaulted by the world, the enemy, because of his righteousness after

God.

This sounds familiar, does it not?

You remember Psalm 2, the same kind of feelings going on and when we talk about that meta -narrative in

Psalm 2, you remember?

In Psalm 2, one through three, we have the nations with their vanity and their lies.

Why do the nations in Psalm 2 and the people's plot in vanity?

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, his Messiah, saying,

let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

So remember, we talked about the turmoil there.

Talk about this conflict between God and the world.

Remember how God responds to that.

He, in verse four of Psalm 2, who sits in the heavens, he just laughs.

The Lord holds them in derision.

Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set

my king on Zion, my holy hill.

He has set apart the Messiah for his purpose to conquer the world, okay?

And so, how does this sound familiar?

Well, I've already kind of alluded to it earlier, is there's this great meta -narrative of the conflict between God and the world

and God saying, I have set apart the Messiah for myself.

And here we have in Psalm 4, we have this assurance because he says in verse three,

but know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself.

So it's almost as if the Father sets apart the Messiah to reign over the wicked world, even in their

conflict, and in our kissing of the Son, we're set apart too.

And so his conflicts become our conflicts.

So the great conflict of the world between God and the enemy becomes our conflict individually in our own

narrative.

We have the honor, the share, and the distress and the conflict that's going

on in the world, between God and the world, between Messiah and the world.

The Father has set apart the Messiah for this purpose and when we kiss the Son, we're set apart too.

And so in our distress, our distress is shares with Messiah.

What a great honor that is.

What meaning it gives to our distress that we would be distressed for righteousness' sake, for the sake of

being in the kingdom of God.

So I think the nature of God calling you to himself is to make the world distressful to you.

The nature of God calling you to himself is connected with that meta -narrative of this

conflict with the world.

He has done it and the very purpose of it is for the world to be distressful to you, for there to be

distress, for there to be conflict, and for you to give it to the Lord and for you to be assured

that you are heard when you cry out to him.

I think we see this truth throughout scripture.

Look at, if you would, Matthew 5 with me.

Look at Matthew 5.

Look at verse 10.

Jesus, teaching, is there on the mount,.

And he says,.

Happy or blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The very nature of the kingdom of heaven is that these people who have now entered into that kingdom

will be persecuted by the world.

You see that?

The world hates God and his plan that he has for Messiah and those who submit to

Messiah and the kingdom.

Blessed are those who are persecuted and hated by the world, right?

So the persecution, the distress that we face from the world is like the same kind of conflict between God and the world and

it is a happy state to be on that side.

It says in verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all

kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, right?

We see that in Psalm 4, vain words, lies.

Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before

you.

This has been a timeless thing, right?

The world hating God and his plan for salvation.

Blessed are you when you find yourself in those crosshairs right there.

That's exactly where you want to be,.

Where you want to be.

First Peter, chapter three.

First Peter, chapter three.

Take a quick look at that one.

First Peter is very much about suffering, about the Christian suffering, right?

Distressed, conflict.

First Peter, chapter three, verse 13.

The apostle says, now who is there to harm you if you are zealous

for what is good, what is righteous, what is honorable?

But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed.

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as

holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in

you.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered

by the world, when people accuse you of false things, those who revile your good

behavior in Christ may be put to shame, ultimately.

For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will than for doing evil.

But, let's look at First Peter four, verse 12.

First Peter four, verse 12.

Peter is along the same line saying the same thing.

First Peter four, verse 12.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to

you.

Do you see that?

We need to get that into our American mind and to our thinking right there, right?

Is that, of course we don't want what's coming as we see it coming, but don't be surprised by it because the

church has suffered this throughout all ages.

But rejoice, rather, in verse 13, insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be

glad when his glory is revealed.

You see how we share in Christ and his sufferings, or we share in the nature of the kingdom

of all ages of the world hating the kingdom.

We get to share in that, that's a blessed distress.

He says in verse 14, if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory

and of God rests upon you.

Now, this is one thing I wanna make sure before we move off this point, is that we do not want,

in our distress, we do not want, okay, the

sinner, those who are in sin, they face many hardships and sorrow and

distress, too, okay?

Many times their life looks great, but their sin brings about natural consequences of distress.

And we do not want to be in our sin, receiving those natural consequences of our distress, and try to paint it

as something righteous.

You see what I mean?

Your distress isn't actually because you're acting in righteousness or in the kingdom of God, it's actually because of your wicked sin.

But you're painting it up with a good show, right?

And I think Peter speaks against that here in verse 15.

He says, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.

He goes on to say in verse 16, yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

And so I do think there is a distinction here, right?

It is good to be in distress, it is good to be in conflict, as long as it's in light of the

righteousness that's found in the kingdom of Christ.

But it is a terrible thing to be in distress of natural consequences of your sin.

Proverbs 13.

You wanna go there with me real quick.

Proverbs 13.

Proverbs 13, verse 13 says, whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, right?

When you reject God, when you reject his truth, what are you going to receive?

Well, he brings destruction on himself.

But he who reveres, respects the commandment will be rewarded.

The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.

Good sense wins favor, but the way of treacherous is their ruin.

So there's a certain aspect in which the normal consequences of our sin brings on distress and calamity, right?

But the righteous, the one who has been made right, the one who is in the kingdom of Christ, they will find distress too.

But their distress is actually a blessed thing, it's actually a good thing, it's actually something to be celebrated because it's in

line with our service and submission to our God.

And so what should we naturally ask ourselves right now, today, in this moment?

What is the nature of my distress that I'm facing today?

What is the nature of my distress that I'm facing today?

Is it a consequence of the sins that I'm living in?

Then what must I do?

Repent and look upon Jesus Christ so that your distress is not gonna go away,

it'll still be there, but it'll be in light of this great eternal kingdom that God is establishing that we get to

be a part of.

Your distress gains a beautiful meaning, right?

Your conflicts gain a beautiful meaning because now it's connected with God.

Instead of being connected with your rebellion and your consequences with sin, your distress, your conflict can be connected

with God's conflict with the world.

And that is a good place to be.

We only have a few years in this world, in this life, and we want to, at the end of it, to say,

here you go, Lord, this is yours.

This is what you've given to me, and here you go.

And if that means distress, if that means a conflict with the world, we should welcome it.

It should be something that we welcome just so that we are found to be faithful to our God.

So we need to let go of this mindset, I think, that conflict,

that distress, that negative feelings are a necessary bad thing, when we can see that in light of the

kingdom of God, in light of what God is doing in all eternity, it is actually a very blessed thing to

face the world's wrath.

So we must ask ourselves, is my distress, what's the nature of it?

May it not be because of your sin, but may it be because of righteousness.

And if your distress is caused because you're in sin, in your distress, call out to Jesus.

The nature of your distress today is because you're in righteousness, consider yourself blessed.

Your distress has eternal, infinite meaning.

So at this point, I'm wondering if I should continue.

Because the next words, the next section is, okay, how are you going to act now

in light of your distress, in light of the fact that you can be assured that God hears you in your distress?

And the next two words is what?

Be angry.

I don't want to mess that one up.

I don't want to get too quickly through that one, and you guys leave saying, it's good to be angry.

We need to be careful with our anger.

We are to act a certain way in light of these beautiful truths, right?

That I am in distress because of righteousness sake, and when I cry out to God in that, he hears me.

That enables me to handle my distress in a very mature and godly way.

You want to know if you're doing it wrong in your distress, you handle it in a very ungodly way.

Well, that means you're doing something wrong at the very beginning.

And I find it interesting that we see in verse four, how are we to act in our distress in light

of these beautiful truths that we have from God, as he says, be angry.

Be angry.

You know, anger is an emotion given by God.

It's a good thing.

It's a good thing to be angry.

I'm so tired of the world telling our men to not be angry over sin, and so they're just lifeless, doing

nothing.

I'm so tired of seeing men not getting biblically angry over sin in their own lives, and the sin

of their family's lives, that they don't act out.

See, beloved, anger is a good thing from God.

It motivates us to act.

So when we say that being angry is always bad, well, you're gonna have a lazy Christian,

because anger is a godly thing when we use it right, and it makes us act against sin.

Godless anger makes us act in sin.

Godly anger makes us act against sin.

You see what the text says there?

Be angry and do not sin.

Rather, let your angry be against sin.

See, what happens a lot of times is in our anger, we work in our own law.

We have our own righteousness.

We have our own standard.

And when it goes against it, when anything goes against it, then it's gonna feel our wrath, right?

But when you are in tune, when you're connected with the righteousness of God, you get angry over wickedness.

And if that anger over wickedness doesn't start within your own heart, you're doing it wrong.

That anger should drive you to act in your own heart, to drive out sin in your own heart, and then it should then go to your

loved ones, to your wife, to your children.

Anger is a good thing given by God to stomp out sin and love.

It's supposed to make you act.

This, in the psalmist, I think, his anger caused him to, first and foremost, cry out to the Lord.

Come to me in my distress.

But notice what it enables him to do.

He, instead of acting out in drunken anger, where we can't help but act out

in a very lawless way, what does he do with his anger?

He ponders.

He thinks in his own heart.

Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent.

And a fruitful Selah is right there, right?

You know that you have godless anger whenever you act as anger does.

That's the whole point of anger.

But you act in a very erratic, sinful way.

You see, this godly anger causes him to consider the situation and ponder on it and

meditate on it.

Sinful anger is a drunken rage in which we cannot think rationally.

Godly anger, as we consider how can I stomp out sin, it causes us to think very rationally.

It causes us to be able to meditate upon it, meditate upon the issue, meditate upon the distress.

And what does it then?

It then leads to godly worship.

In which he says in verse five, offer right sacrifices and put your trust

in the Lord.

Now, we'll go into it more next week because I don't have time to do it faithfully.

But we can see, well, next week we'll see what does it mean to rightfully sacrifice to God?

What does it mean to have rightful worship?

And how does that lead us to trust in the Lord?

But nevertheless, the point that we're getting at is distress in the kingdom of God.

Distress in the kingdom of God, when you're going through it in a righteous way, it actually does not cause negativity.

It doesn't cause death in your life.

It actually causes great life in your life.

It causes you to grow.

It doesn't bring you down, but it actually brings you up into righteousness because you cry out to the one who hears

and it causes you to act in a way that fuels worship to our God.

So again, just to conclude with one last sentence or two or three,

is how do you view distress in your own life?

Are you eager when distress comes your way to bring it to the Lord?

Are you eager to let it lead you into proper biblical worship to God?

And if you're not, if distress only has a way of just knocking you over and just defeating you, perhaps you're looking at the whole

thing wrong.

There is distress in this life.

There's conflict in this life.

That's a whole purpose.

The one who has been called out by God, that distress, instead of destroying him, it actually, through the power of

his kingdom, it actually uplifts, it brings up.

And this is what makes Christians so different, isn't it?

The world, with their vanity, hates, mocks, all their goofiness, they turn against God

and they wonder why things are so messed up.

The Christian, he has been set apart.

He has been made righteous and he is given the ability to take distress, take that conflict, and it

actually strengthens him and his walk.

So may that be said of all of us here today.

God in heaven, thank you so much for your word.

Oftentimes, God, our hearts, our minds, our focus can be off of you and it can be on our

problems and we can forget the very nature of problems.

It's for it to be solved.

It's for it to be refined through Jesus Christ so that the difference between us as

Christians and the world is not that we lack problems or conflict or distress, but yet we get

to cry out to you who hears.

And we can see at the end of this psalm, we can be in peace.

We can lie down and sleep in peace because we have this great God who comes for us, comforts us.

Lord, we know that the world hates you.

We know that there's been conflicts since the beginning of sin because of this great war.

But we know that Jesus has the victory.

And so let us be thankful for this victory.

And so even in our moment, as we consider our own distresses that we have, if they're distresses because of sin, may we bring it

to Christ.

But if they're distresses for being obedient to you and righteousness, may we consider ourselves blessed even in this moment as we cry

tears because of those distresses.

Because as we know, it's connected with this great eternal conflict that yours is the victory.

And so we have that victory.

Lord, what a comfort to saints.

We're so thankful that we can be comforted by you.

So let us carry that comfort with us throughout this day, throughout our week, in worship, in our meditation upon you,

Lord.

And I pray that you would continue to comfort us in all our distresses until we get to see Jesus face to face.

Praise be to your great name.

We praise you this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.