Can we experience God’s peace even in the midst of discouragement? David contemplates this in the last part of Psalm 4.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The pastor contrasts seeking peace through external solutions (like “New Coke”) versus seeking peace through a relationship with God. What are some modern examples in your own life where you’ve been tempted to chase a “quick fix” for discouragement instead of turning to God first?
David prays “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord” rather than asking God to remove all his problems. How does this distinction between praying for God’s presence versus praying for problem-elimination change the way you think about your own prayers during difficult seasons?
What would you put in the blank: “If only I had __, then I would have peace”? Why is it that even when we obtain that thing, lasting contentment remains out of reach?
The sermon suggests that true peace can coexist with unresolved circumstances—David sleeping peacefully while still being pursued by his enemies. Have you experienced moments where you felt God’s peace despite ongoing struggles? What made that possible?
The pastor mentions how a church stewardship campaign inadvertently shifted focus from spending time with God to accomplishing a fundraising goal. How do you guard against letting good activities or goals become substitutes for your primary relationship with God?
How does Jeremiah’s vision of God’s everlasting covenant and ultimate restoration (Jeremiah 32) reframe the way you think about present discouragement? What does it mean to trust in God’s ultimate peace even when current circumstances don’t improve?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be here with you once again tonight as we wrap up our series piece. We’ve been thinking about what Psalm 4 has to say to us, what God inspired David to write in that psalm to speak to our yearning for peace. And yet, those places where our desire for peace seems to clash with our experience in life.
We thought about what happens when people are speaking against us, people are coming after us and attacking us. What happens when we feel anger or even those around us trying to defend us and help us feel anger? And how do we seek peace in the midst of that?
Tonight we’re going to turn to the subject of discouragement. And as we begin, I want to ask if you know anyone who’s discouraged, maybe consider hitting the share button right now and let them know about this series and invite them to join you tonight. You can talk to them on the chat as we go through it. You can help encourage someone in God’s word. And if you’re here tonight and you’re feeling discouraged, my prayer for you is that this series as it wraps up will encourage you because you see David is in the midst of an incredibly discouraging time in this psalm, and yet he finds the peace that God gives us. And I think probably all of us are yearning for some of that peace now in the midst of the discouragement that we’re facing.
I don’t know anyone this last year who hasn’t faced some discouragement, whether it’s canceled trips or lost jobs or even worse, lost loved ones. It’s been such a discouraging time in so many ways. I was reminded of that this weekend when I saw this tweet from a fellow pastor. He said, remember when 2019 was a terrible year and everyone was pumped up for 2020? That really resonated with me because I was discouraged in 2019. There were a lot of things that weren’t the way I had hoped they would be. And it felt like a new start and it was a neat sounding number, 2020. And it felt like, okay, this is going to be a year of encouragement. And I know so many people who were going into 2020 thinking that.
And then 2020 didn’t go how we hoped. And we thought, well, 2021 is going to wrap it all up. Everything’s going to be great now. We’re going to be past this virus, vaccines were coming, the numbers were going down. And then here we are in the fall of 2021. We’re still talking about a pandemic. We’re still talking about lost jobs and the economic impact. We’re still dealing with shortages of food at grocery stores. We’re still dealing with all this stuff. And so much of life still feels up in the air. Probably all of us are struggling with discouragement. And then you throw in all the stuff that we have in life normally that discourages us. And all that stuff’s kept rolling along as this global discouragement has also been upon us. And what do we do in the midst of that?
Well, as we think about that, let’s come before our God and ask that He would encourage us tonight. And then we’ll turn back to Psalm chapter 4. Let’s pray.
Father, indeed, our hearts are heavy. There are so many things, the things that occupy the news and the things that will never be mentioned there but we struggle with individually that discourage us tonight. We wrestle with, that we try to sort out. Lord, would you encourage us and would you direct us towards your peace? Would you help us to rest in that peace even in the midst of discouraging times? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, just to recap where we’ve been, remember, David is in the midst of an incredibly discouraging time. He’s probably fleeing from Saul during the time this psalm’s written. We don’t know for sure. It doesn’t say. Probably fleeing from Saul, perhaps fleeing from his son Absalom, in either case fleeing for his life, not able to occupy his rightful place as king, not sure he’s going to live to ever occupy it again. I’d say that’s a pretty discouraging time.
And in the midst of that, David hears people saying what we see at the beginning of verse six. He says, “There are many who say, Who will show us some good?” Now, what they have in mind here and who’s saying it, we’re not told for sure, but it seems quite likely that some of the people asking this are the very people who had championed David. Maybe if they’d heard that David had been anointed by Samuel and they thought that he was going to be the future king, they thought he was going to bring good to them and they had befriended him and were supporting him and things stay rough. And they think, have we picked the wrong horse in this race? Maybe we should go back to Saul. Maybe we should go to someone else. It doesn’t seem like there’s very much good coming here.
If it’s later in David’s life, again, same basic principle. People see David and he seems like a walking disaster. The storm cloud of life is just following him through this. And so they say, who can show us some good? Some of those people probably had in mind, almost certainly had in mind, as we learned later in the psalm, the good as in necessities of life, food, sustenance, just how you survive. And they say, well, it seems like we follow David and that’s not there. Who can show us some good? Who can show us just a life that has abundance and joy, a life where we’re not trying to go from meal to meal and wondering if we’re going to starve, a life where we’re not fleeing the same enemies that David’s fleeing. Who can show us some good?
Perhaps this is driven more home to us right now than it normally is. You see time and again, all across the nation and in the United States, this isn’t something we’re used to where our grocery store shelves are lacking and people are frustrated because you go into the store and you want something and it’s not there. Now, of course, there’s plenty of other somethings. We’re not starving for a lack of supplies in the grocery store, thankfully, but it gives us a taste of when the good that we just took as always there, it just magically shows up, isn’t there. And then with all the things going on in our lives, it feels like good that maybe we took for granted in a different time in our life is lacking. And we want to say to who can show us some good.
I’m trying to follow the Lord or I’m listening tonight wondering if I should follow the Lord. Is he going to show me any good? And in scripture, we see this question come up time and again and again, Israelites out in the wilderness. They say, okay, God, you rescued us from the Egyptians. That seemed like a good, but now we’re hungry. And then they say later on, now we’re sick of what you’re giving us Lord to eat. We want something else. Who can show us some good? Think about the disciples, even at times they would scratch their heads at Jesus. They’re on the boat and the storm comes and Jesus is asleep and they think, does he even care if we die? Who can show us some good?
And here’s something that’s dangerous that can happen when we ask that question, which is we think, well, we just need a change. And David may have been wondering if the people around him were going to do just that. They were going to say, well, it doesn’t seem to be working with David, so we just need a change. We need some other leader to follow. Certainly the Israelites said that. They said, we just need some change. Why don’t we follow a different God? Maybe a God who will give us better harvest or will give us a better land or will give us the peace that we want right now. And so they’d make that change and yet it didn’t work out because they were changing from the God of the universe to something they thought was going to bring momentary fulfillment, a momentary solution.
We need to ask, what kind of change should we make when we feel like we need to ask that question, where can the good come from? Who can show us some good? Because when we just allow that yearning for whatever we feel is missing to continue to stir up that discouragement and discontent, when we just want to be freed from that discouragement, we think whatever change I need to make to be free of it right this moment is what I’m going to do. We can make some really bad choices.
Let me ask you a question. What do you think when you see this next picture? Yes, it’s the infamous New Coke and I almost hesitate to even show a picture of it because New Coke has become sort of the symbol of bad change and yet it’s really insightful when you think about it. Coke was having a few years that their product wasn’t selling quite as well and so they decided to take their core thing, the thing that they were most famous for, and change it to see if they could get some good out of it. We just needed change.
And what happened? People were incredibly angry because they didn’t want their Coca-Cola to be changed. Coke knew there was a problem. They were, so to speak, as a company facing discouragement, but what they didn’t think through was what kind of change would solve that discouragement. And what that ended up being was sticking to what they were good at and that ultimately freed them from that discouragement. In fact, people appreciated the restoring of what they missed and the discouragement ended, at least for that moment.
Now for us, it’s not always that simple and for Coke in the moment, it probably wasn’t that simple either. We make a change and then maybe we appreciate more what we had, but we can’t always just go back to it. Certainly the Israelites, they’d make changes, they’d go follow other gods and they couldn’t necessarily just go back. There were consequences. What scripture calls us to do and what scripture calls us to do in this moment is to make a change in our perspective, but to make the right change. To follow David’s example here, David says, yes, there needs to be a change when people are asking this question. Yes, there needs to be a change when I’m feeling discouragement and in my head I’m asking, who can show me some good? But it’s not often where I’m going to naturally go.
It’s not going to be those quick things that seem like it’s just going to provide relief. What we need to do is what he says at the end of verse six. Take a look. What does David say in the midst of facing this question? He says, “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord.” He doesn’t say, Lord, vindicate me and give me loads of good things so I can take all that goodness and I can just throw it in the face of those people who are asking that question. What does he do?
He echoes the very language that we see back in the Torah, back in Numbers, as the blessing that the priest was supposed to give, that Aaron and his descendants were to give. “The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you.” Those familiar words are being alluded to here. David prays, Lord, show your light to us. And in that, that reference to seeing the face of God, his light shining upon us, is an allusion to God’s mercy being shown to us. Because, of course, we don’t deserve to see his face. We don’t deserve to see the light of the Lord shine upon us. When he does, it’s showing mercy. David’s prayer in the midst of a clear time of lack, a clear time of discord, isn’t to say, Lord, take away all the discontent. Take away all the discord. Provide lots of good things in my life. He says, provide one good thing in my life. Let me see your mercy.
You see, David recognizes that the solution isn’t stuff and it isn’t programs and it isn’t action per se, it’s prayer. It’s the relationship he has with the Lord and that he prays that as the Lord shows that light to him, that others would see, too, that this is what they really need. This is what’s going to solve what they’re yearning for. It’s what we see testified to in God’s word time and again, which is that he’s a loving and merciful God.
A number of years ago, I was involved in a church that decided to have a giant stewardship program, a program that’s fancy church lingo for a program that’s going to go and try to raise a bunch of money by convincing the people, the church, to give more money. And it’s a very good thing to support your church. It’s a very good thing to support the ministries that God brings you into. These are good things, but I have a problem with stewardship programs of the sort that I saw. Because you see, the point of that program was to make everyone feel important to that program so that when it came time to commit to how much you gave, you wanted to give a lot because you’d been a part of this. And of course, if you’d been a part of this and you’d been running a committee and you’d been organizing programs and you’d been doing all this stuff, well, of course you should support the church, right?
And in fact, everyone was busy for months. You know what the problem was in the midst of that? Yes, the money came in at the end, but our contentment became, are we reaching the goal of raising enough money, not are we reaching the goal of spending enough time with our God? And you know what didn’t happen that fall? What didn’t happen is spending time sharing God’s love with people around us because we were too busy running programs for each other inside the church about the stewardship campaign, having prayer times about the stewardship campaign, having festivals about the stewardship campaign. Contentment, the escape from the discontent and the fears and the shortfalls of the world isn’t situated in accomplishing some goal like reaching a stewardship number. Yes, it provides peace in a sense, but if that’s where we situate our peace, it’s only going to be peace until the next time that we fall short of that goal or until there’s a need that makes that goal even bigger.
And I mean, that doesn’t mean that those things aren’t going to eat at us. If we’re involved in a business that’s falling short on its income every year and we know it’s going to go bankrupt soon, of course we’re going to feel a lack of peace. If you’re experiencing that personally and you’re in a time of financial hardship, of course you’re going to feel a lack of peace as you worry about that. If we’re in a church and the church is burning through money and it doesn’t have enough, yeah, it’s going to cause a lack of peace. If you don’t have enough to eat, I pray no one listening has had that experience, but if you don’t have enough to eat, we’re going to feel a lack of peace.
And it’s not that we shouldn’t want to see those things solved. David here surely wants to see a time where he’s not being pursued by his enemies, where there aren’t people mocking him and mocking God. But David recognizes that the freedom from those trials are not what’s going to bring peace. You see, what he sees is that one thing is going to bring that peace, and that is being in the presence of his God. Lord, show your mercy upon me.
And yet, how often, even if we know intellectually that’s the right answer, or maybe you’re starting to think that’s the right answer, how often, how often do I, how often do you fall into the trap of thinking something else is the key to feeling peace? Would you help me complete this sentence? You don’t have to say it out loud, you don’t have to say it in the chat, but I think all of us can complete this sentence. If only I had, put whatever you’d like in that blank, if only I had such and such, if only I had a better job, if only I had more friends, if only I had a more peaceful family situation, if only I had, then I would feel peace. Then I wouldn’t be discontented.
What is that thing for you? Because I confess, I struggle with this, and I bet you do too. We get fixated on something, and we think, if only I had this, then I would feel peaceful. Only this worked out, then I would feel peaceful. Problem is, we get that thing, or those things, or those accomplishments, and something else goes wrong, and we’re right back into the discontent that we were feeling, the discouragement that we were feeling. Even when they’re good things, we’re going to come back to times of discontent. But what the psalm calls us to do is to think about where true contentment, that will last both when we feel like we have an abundance, and we don’t need to ask, show me good things because the good things are just pouring in, and those times where we can’t even really remember what good things are like, that in both of those times, we can feel the encouragement that comes from a relationship with our God.
Take a look at Psalm 4, 7-8. David goes on, he says, “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.” See, we get a bit of an answer there to that earlier question of what kind of good are people yearning for. David says, those people, they want wine, they want lots of grain, so in other words, good food and good drink. But even when they have that, they’re not going to have as much joy as David has, even as he’s hiding from his enemies, because David is experiencing a relationship with his God that’s far greater than having all the things the world says make us happy, and all those things that are even good things in the world.
David says this is so true that he’s going to lie down in bed and he’s going to fall asleep right away because the Lord is with him. And if you’ve experienced a sleepless night where you’re just worrying and you feel like you’re tossing and turning, the pillow’s uncomfortable, it’s like a rock under you because all you can do is let your mind play out all the things that are going wrong, all the things you don’t know a solution to, that’s the sort of moment, that discouragement that David’s speaking to, the sort of thing that he’s experiencing. But he says when he comes before the Lord and he prays that prayer and he asks the Lord to show his mercy to him, not because everything’s been fixed, but because he knows that he’s following the one who can fix everything, who will fix everything, he lies down in bed and he falls asleep.
What do we do when we’re tossing and turning in bed? Do we just keep stirring it up and building up and worrying more and more? I do that a lot. I’m good at worrying. One of my specialties. Is that what you’re doing? Or do we stop and think, wait a second, let me just come before the Lord and ask him to show his mercy to me, to remind me of his presence and his love, to reflect on that promise from Numbers and that blessing.
Because what does it say? “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you.” And this is really important to hear, and give you his peace. Do you think about that? If you’ve heard someone give that blessing, oftentimes at the end of a worship service, do you think about what that’s really saying? It’s saying to encounter God, to come into his presence, to relate to him and to experience him as where peace is situated. It’s not situated in the solution to the problems we experience, as nice as those are. It’s situated in the one who can solve the problems.
When we look for the peace in the momentary crisis that is causing us discontent and discouragement right now, it’s passing. But when we look to the ultimate author of the solution, we also are looking to the author of peace itself. And we’re looking to the God who’s promised not just the momentary solution to the problem that we have today, or the problem we’ll have five years from now, or ten years from now, or any time before our death, but what happens ultimately? What kind of peace can we ultimately look forward to?
Let’s take a look at what the prophet Jeremiah says in chapter 32 of Jeremiah, especially this first verse. He says, “Behold, I will gather them from all countries that is God’s people, to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place and I will make them dwell in safety.” Now, he’s talking about the Israelites, but he goes on and he gives this beautiful vision of the future. He says, “And they shall be my people and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. And I will rejoice in doing them good and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness with all my heart and all my soul.”
Do we see the fulfillment of that promise? We don’t see that in momentary earthly prosperity. So often that’s what the Israelites were looking for. And so often that’s what we’re looking for. It’s what we’re looking for. Even when we start paging through God’s word or we go to church or we pray, we’re looking for give me that prosperity. Give me that peace in the moment, Lord. But where’s that prophecy being fulfilled and where will ultimately be fulfilled? It’s far grander than what the first people hearing it probably thought, which is that God would bring through that people a Messiah who would usher far more people into God’s people, people like you and like me. And in that, he’d offer us the peace of being one of his family, being someone who, when the current age is long past, when everything that seems important now no longer does, we will still be in God’s presence and experiencing his peace.
You see, the first challenge is the one that David is encouraging us to is to turn our eyes towards the Lord and to see that it’s in him that peace comes. And as we do that, we solve the second challenge too, which is not only to make a change, but to understand that that change is towards true peace and that true peace is from God.
It helps when we’re being opposed and attacked because those times don’t just go away magically. We might want them to, we might hope that they will, and it’s certainly appropriate to come before God and pray about them and seek a solution to them. But it comes instead of recognizing the source of peace is God even in that moment. David experiences this peace now, in the moment, as he’s being pursued, as he’s out and hiding, because he’s experiencing the joy of the Lord. And that also helps us with what we talked about last week. If we recognize that peace isn’t going to come from unleashing our anger and sending everyone into the place that we think they should be, but rather even our anger should be anger driving towards true peace, driving towards fixing things and seeing it made right. Because what ultimately is being made right is being in God’s presence and seeing other people come into God’s presence. You see, then anger becomes something that can be righteous and can drive towards peace.
So whether we’re the one being opposed, we’re the one who’s angry, whether we’re just sitting here in just a well of discouragement, Scripture says time and again, it says, come to him who offers peace. It’s not necessarily the peace that we want in the moment. We want peace that just takes away all those problems. That we can just do something as quickly as a marketing campaign and a new formulation on the soda of life and everything will be great. God calls us to cling to him and not to some gimmick. God calls us to cling to him and not worldly solutions.
When we do, what do we do? What do we experience? Experience the countenance of the Lord shining upon us. And in that, it’s my prayer that you’ll experience his peace. It’s his promise that you’ll experience his peace.
Would you pray with me, please?
Lord, so often we do race towards the things we think can fix things in the moment and make things right in the moment. We cling to solutions to the things that provoke us to fear, to anger, to discouragement that seem to hinder our successes and lead us towards failure. Often we limit even our prayers to prayers for solutions to those things rather than prayers that we would know more of you so that we could experience your peace even in the midst of those things. Not always the news that we want to hear that the discouraging events or situations might continue for a season. How wonderful it is when we can cling to the promise that you have for us, that wherever we are and whatever we’re going through, that you are with us, and that in that moment you offer us peace. Lord, would you help me, would you help every person who is listening tonight, taking part in this time, to experience that peace and to experience it through our Savior, in whose precious name we pray, Jesus. Amen.
Well, I do hope that this has been an encouragement to you tonight. I hope this series has encouraged you because we do feel a lot of lack of peace in our lives. But God knows what we’re going through. Jesus experienced discontent. Jesus experienced discouragement watching the things going on. And yet what did he do? He turned to his Heavenly Father. And I pray as you reflect on this psalm, that it’ll help you to do that more. It’s something we’re going to struggle with at times. We’re not going to get there easily. Our God is with you all the way. He’s with me. What a joy that is.
Well, I do hope that this has been encouraging to you, and if it has, please consider giving it a like. Please consider giving it a share and encouraging other people with the encouragement we find in God’s Word. And I hope you’ll join me next week. We’re going to move from David to his son Solomon and begin a brand-new series called The Temple Prayer. I’m so excited to share this with you. We’re turning to Solomon’s prayer of dedication as the temple was completed. The temple of God. And through that, Solomon prays a prayer speaking to the truth of who God is and what he will do for his people. And in that, we learn a lot. We’re reminded of a lot of who God is for us today.
As we reflect on where the temple is today that we’re told is in our hearts, may this time thinking about that physical temple of the past be a time that encourages us to think all the more about how God is with us. So I hope you’ll join me next week at 7 p.m. on Monday night for that as we continue on Steadfast.
If there’s any way I can be praying for you in a time of discouragement right now or a time of joy, I would love to hear from you. Send me a prayer request at the email address on screen or leave a prayer request in the comments below and we can all pray together. I’d love hearing from you any way I can be of assistance. Shoot me an email. Leave me a message. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day, and I can’t wait to see you again next week. God bless. God bless.
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