A Word in Season: Matchless Condescension (Psalm 40:17)

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Most of us probably have some sense of what it is to be sneered at, to be disdained, to have people look down their noses at us, to treat us like we're the scum of the earth, to deal with us like something that needs to be wiped off the bottom of a shoe.

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That can be extremely painful. I'm not talking now about a proper sense of our own sinfulness, a recognition of the fact that we actually deserve

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God's punishment. I'm talking more about the way in which Christians are often treated and, in fact, many others feel also because of the way in which others have no regard for them.

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In David's case, in Psalm 40, he is wrestling with various realities, all of which he knows and understands, but which don't always seem to fit together in his present experience.

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He has been faithful to God. He has testified of the Lord. He has made known his name in the assembly.

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He has not concealed his loving kindness and his truth. David has been walking in the ways of God and seeking to do what pleases him.

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And yet, around him, there are enemies gathering. There is that disdain. There is that aggression, even unto violence.

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And David is saying that he has people who seek his life, and he's casting himself upon the

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Lord. He's pleading as he goes through that psalm, Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me.

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Those around me who wish me evil, drive them back and bring them to dishonor. He's conscious and confident, on the one hand, that those who seek

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God will rejoice and be glad in him, and that those who love God's salvation will continually say,

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The Lord be magnified. But while David is confidently conscious of that, he himself is not feeling that reality at this point in his experience.

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And so in verse 17, having assured himself and others that to seek after God is to know joy and gladness, he says this,

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But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer.

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Do not delay, O my God. David feels his utter need.

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He is a broken man in some respects. He's been brought to the very depths. He is wearied, he is battered, he is bruised.

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He feels like he has no resources left, that he has been treated as worthless.

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He's been trampled upon. He's assaulted and insulted on every hand. I am poor and needy.

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But consider this. The Lord thinks upon me.

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Is that not marvelous condescension? Is that not a matchless stooping down on the part of the

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Most High God? Now he said that he delights to dwell with those who are of a contrite heart and a broken spirit.

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And here's a broken -hearted and contrite man. Here is someone who knows himself a sinner and feels himself despised and disdained by the enemies of God.

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Here is one who's come to the end of himself and he's now crying out to the Lord to help him. And the wonder of it is that however men disregard him, because he has trusted in the

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Lord that the Lord thinks upon him. He knows that God is his help.

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He is confident that God is his deliverer. He is sure that that will be brought about.

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And so he cries out to God, Oh do not delay. Oh my God. Now that has to be our response when we are brought low.

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It's not bravado to try and bluff our way out of the situation.

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We don't need to shake these things off and pretend that all is well with us. It's good for us to confess we are poor and needy.

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We are resourceless in ourselves. We've come to the end of our own efforts.

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We are perhaps beset on every side. No one thinks very highly of us. Perhaps some hate us.

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But God, the most high God, thinks upon his trusting people.

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His eye is upon them. His heart is toward them. He will help us.

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He will deliver us. And so we cast ourselves upon him and say simply,

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Do not delay. Oh my God. If we are being disdained in these days,

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God still regards us because of his love and mercy in Christ. And God will deliver us in his good time.