The King of Justice, The King of Love | Psalm 5

Let’s go to the Lord one more time. Ask for his blessing on the preaching of His Word. Let’s pray.

Our Father in heaven, we confess that nothing that has just happened and nothing that is about to happen can have any lasting significance unless it be applied to us by Your Holy Spirit. And we confess and believe that you speak to us and apply Your Word to us by your Spirit. So we ask now that your Spirit would do just that. Sanctify us in Thy word, for your word is truth. Give us ears to hear and hearts to hear. Now we ask all in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Your eternal destiny hinges on the justice of God. Your eternal destiny hinges on the justice of God. Every man, every woman, every child in this room is an eternal being with an eternal destiny. You will live forever. Your very being, your very nature testifies to that. Everybody knows that deep down. But that eternal destiny, it has a hinge. It has a pivot. It can swing one way or the other, but there’s only two options. One way or this way, up or down, left or right. There’s only two options. And that pivot, that hinge is the justice of God—more precisely, your eternal destiny is determined by whether or not the justice of God is for you or against you.

Is God Almighty’s justice your friend, or is it your enemy? Is it a shield before you, or is it a sword pointed at you? Is God’s justice your greatest comfort when you lay your head on your pillow at night? Or is it your worst nightmare that keeps you up, that keeps you from sleeping? The justice of God is an undeniable, unavoidable, inescapable either-or reality that underlies the entire Bible. You can no more change it. You can no more subdue it. You can no more make it go away than you can make the sun stop shining because you refuse to go outside. It’s there and you have to deal with it.

It is here in Psalm 5 that I think the stunning glory of God’s justice is revealed to us as the greatest hope of the righteous and the greatest enemy of the wicked. The fundamental question, then, that lies before everybody in this room, each of you is this: Where do you stand in relation to the justice of God? It’s there. But where do you stand in relation to it? Which side of the line are you on, and how do you know that? Can you be confident in your answer to that question?

It is to these matters we give our attention in Psalm 5. We have sung it. We’ve read it. Let me summarize it for you in my own words. If main ideas are helpful for you, this is my main idea of Psalm 5: God’s people endure suffering and evil by trusting in their God, who justly judges the wicked and lovingly protects and leads the righteous.

God’s people endure suffering and evil by trusting in their God, who justly judges the wicked and lovingly leads and protects the righteous.

Now, before I go any further, I need to make two introductory comments to this Psalm—two introductory comments that are going to help you hear the sermon better, I think will help the Psalm land better as you’re listening to it preached. And those two comments come in the form of two questions.

So two introductory questions. The first one is this: What is David doing in this Psalm? And this is not a trick question. What is David doing in the Psalm? Kids, if you’ve read this in the bulletin, you can probably answer the question. David in this Psalm is praying. David is praying the first three verses. But he’s not just casually praying, is he? He is pouring out his soul to God in his own words. He’s crying, he’s moaning, he’s lamenting. He is struggling to get words from his brain out of his mouth and to go here in sentences. He is clearly in turmoil because of the opposition, because of the persecution he is facing from his present enemies.

But what I find so fascinating is how little David actually asks for in this Psalm. You got 12 or so verses. He really only asks for two or three things. The vast majority of this psalm is David simply rehearsing, confessing, declaring, speaking to himself things that are true about God, the things that he can bank on in terms of God’s character, God’s promises, God’s ways, who he knows God to be. So much of the Psalm is David simply rehearsing who God is. And that matters because the aim that I have in the sermon is to draw out some of those things, draw out those rich, deep theological truths that David seems to be banking on in his moment of turmoil.

But I don’t want you to mistake the sermon simply as a theological exercise. This is not a theology class. This is the preaching of the Word of God. And my aim is to hold out these bedrock theological truths because they have life-changing, earth-shattering implications for how you live the Christian life. And in that way, this Psalm, like the rest of the Psalms, it’s theology in action. It’s real people really trying to follow God, dealing with real circumstances in a world that is really plagued by sin. And yet there are real truths about God that get men like King David through times like this. This is theology and action deployed in faithful pursuit of God.

So that’s introductory question number one. What is David doing? He’s praying. Do not forget that David is praying.

Question number two: How is this Psalm structured? It’s a little bit more of a complicated question. How is this Psalm structured? What I mean by that is how is it laid out? How is it organized? It’s a very important question to ask as you read the Bible. There’s a simple way to answer that question where you could say, well, the Psalms, like the whole book, they’re songs, they’re meant to be sung. And so they have verses. Verse one, there’s a stanza, a couple of verses, and then a blank space. And then we go to verse two, kind of like songs we sing. That’s a correct answer to how the Psalms are structured. But I think there’s more we can say here for how Psalm five is structured.

You don’t have to agree with me. I don’t really have time to get into details on this, but what I want you to know, because it will help you listen and follow along in the sermon, is that this Psalm, Psalm five, is structured by what we call a chiasm. There’s your ten-dollar word for the day. I have no more ten-dollar words. This is your word for the day. C-H-I-A-S-M. It is a very common Hebrew poetic rhetorical device. And what it is, is it’s just a way of organizing a chapter or a song or a set of thoughts. And the structure kind of follows like an arrowhead shape. You’ve got mirrored ideas that move closer towards the middle, and then you’ve got a focal point, and there’s a middle focal point that tells you where the author’s main point is.

So in distinction from something like a story where you’ve got characters and setting, you have tension and rising action, and then you get a climax. And that’s where, you know, the point of narrative is where you’ve got the apostle Paul, who speaks in logical arguments, this and if then if that, then this, and then I’m drawing a conclusion. Those are all ways that different parts of the Bible are structured. What I’m telling you is that Psalm five is not structured like that. It’s not a story, it’s not a logical argument. What David’s doing is writing a song, a prayer. He’s writing poetry. And that matters because as I work through the rest of this text, I’m not going to preach through it line by line. I’m not just going to go verse one, verse two, and all the way down. And maybe for some of you that might make you think that I don’t believe in expositional preaching, because expositional preaching is verse by verse, line by line. And I’m here to tell you, I believe in expositional preaching with all of my heart, and I believe in it so much. I’m laboring, attempting to organize and structure this sermon according to what I perceive to be the structure of this Psalm. So that as I’m bouncing a little bit around this psalm, I’m not just picking my favorite parts. I think this is how David is structuring this song in Psalm five.

So that brings me to the outline for this sermon. I have three points. And as I mentioned, these three points follow what appeared to be the main contrasts between the righteous and the wicked. You got three points and we’re slowly moving inwards towards the middle of the Psalm. Three contrasts between the righteous and the wicked that King David finds comfort in, in the midst of his present persecution.

Number one: Opposition and Protection.

Number two: Condemnation and Pardon.

Number three: Obedience and Rebellion.

1. Opposition and Protection

God’s posture towards the wicked is characterized as opposition—intense, pointed opposition. Look at verses four through six: “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

Let the intensity of those statements just sit with you for a moment. Read them again if you need to, and don’t gloss over them. Those words mean what you think they mean. God does not delight in wickedness. God hates those who do evil. God destroys those who speak lies. God abhors, which means he detests, he abominates, he cannot tolerate the presence of the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

I don’t know what your idea of God was when you walked in those doors this morning—what you think about him, what you picture him as, what you think he’s characterized by. But I’m here to tell you, and Psalm 5 is here to tell you: God is not passive. God is not ambivalent. He is not amoral. He did not just spin the world into existence and then sit back and watch the thing blow up. No. God is active. God is invested. He is actively burning for some things and against other things. And what’s in view here is that he is actively, intensely, passionately opposed to everything that is evil, every kind of wickedness, every kind of unrighteousness, boasting, lying, deceiving. The list goes on and on, including the human beings who are characterized by that kind of wickedness.

Now, I need to say something about how we are supposed to understand these kinds of statements about God. I don’t want to detract from what those statements mean or what they say, but there is a pitfall that many Christians fall into, and that pitfall is that we think God is like us. Or maybe to say it better, we think God is more like us than he is unlike us. “He’s God, so he’s better than me? Yes, but at the end of the day, he’s really not all that different. He’s in the same class of being I am; he’s just at the top of the pile.” And the Bible doesn’t speak that way because God’s not a creature. God is the Creator. God is eternal. God is unchanging, and we are full of sin. We change every day. We change every moment. And that affects how we understand statements like this.

Because when we read that God hates evildoers, most of us naturally, even subconsciously, think God hates the way that we hate. God hates like me. And that’s a massive problem. God does not hate the way that humans hate. He’s not petty. He’s not anxious. He’s never fearful, arrogant, annoyed, injured, explosively reactive. God’s hatred is perfect. God’s hatred is wholly, completely, righteously perfect. His hatred flows from a perfect affection for his righteousness and justice. It is motivated by an intense jealousy for the glory of his name, and it is his necessary opposition towards everything that is evil. Because evil is a rebellious intrusion into his world.

God is the King of all creation. And what do kings do? Kings protect their kingdom. Kings protect their people. And that means they oppose. They drive out. They fight against those who would infiltrate their kingdom. And this is what David reminds himself of when he considers his present distress and persecution. He comforts himself that God is the one who will destroy the wicked.

And I think what David has in mind mainly is Judgment Day. I think what David mainly has in mind is he considers and confesses God’s destruction of the wicked. He’s looking past the present, he’s looking into the future, and he’s looking towards Judgment Day. And I know that because he picks up the exact same phrase as Psalm chapter one. So you can probably look over one page in your Bible, Psalm 1:5. It says, “The wicked will not stand in the judgment.” Psalm 5:5 says, “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes.” It’s the same idea. They shall not stand in the judgment.

David looks forward to the day where God will fully, finally, perfectly put his justice on display in the judgment of the wicked. And can it be any other way? Can there be any other outcome to the end of a world like this? God must judge the wicked. There must be judgment at the end of all of this. It may be difficult to stomach God’s hatred of the wicked, his judgment of the wicked. It can be hard to wrap our minds around, but we must hang our hat on the fact that it is good news for those of us who are in Christ. Without it, the world doesn’t make sense. Life has no meaning apart from the judgment of the wicked.

God opposes the wicked. Conversely, he intensely protects the righteous. Look at the end of Psalm 5 for the parallel idea. You got the beginning that he opposes the wicked. You go down to the end, verse 11 and 12: “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.”

Is that contrast not just stunning? The Lord, who so violently opposes the wicked, that exact same affection burning for the protection of his people, providing haven and refuge, blessing his children, covering them with favor, shielding them from evil.

And just consider for a moment the power of God that is deployed to do that. The power of God deployed in the protection of the righteous—God, who is powerful enough to speak the world into existence out of nothing. God who is powerful enough to hang the sun and command it to shine. God who has power over thunder and lightning. God who has power to make fire fall from heaven. Power to split the sea in half. All of this and so much more deployed for what purpose? Like arms wrapping around his children, protecting them. It’s like a toddler safe in the arms of his father. He knows what those arms protect him. They cradle him. They can rock him to sleep. But should anyone try to harm him, what will those arms do in a moment? Fury. Wrath? Protecting that child from anything that would seek to harm him.

I want to give you just a point of application before we move on here. In light of the fact that God opposes the wicked, he protects the righteous. The application I have for you is this: Learn to relate to God as your King. Learn how to relate to God as your King. Part of what it means to be a Christian is that you have fully submitted your life to God. He’s Lord, and that means obedience. When God speaks, we do it. We obey authority, submission. That’s a dynamic of relating to God as king. That’s true. But there’s another dynamic of relating to God as king. And I think it’s often lost on us today. And that idea is that kings provide this kind of warrior-like protection for their people. Kings are not pushovers. They’re not soft, at least when they’re doing what they’re supposed to be. They’re not. This idea is lost. We don’t have kings today. We have a military. We have a president. But it maps onto ancient culture much more directly. In ancient history, a king would have been the one who commands the military. So whether he’s the one actually fighting or not, he’s protecting the kingdom. He’s commanding troops. He’s going to battle. He’s protecting the people. That’s what kings do.

And as a child of God, I’m encouraging you: Take your cues from King David. Learn how to relate to God that way—that’s how God interacts with his children and those who are the subjects of his kingdom.

Here’s a very personal example. Personal illustration. There’s so many ways this could look like in your life. Here’s just one from my family’s life. The Lord has been very kind to bless us with three children. He’s also seen fit that we’ve suffered a number of miscarriages over the years. And in one of those in particular, I remember what brought my family comfort, mainly through my wife’s faith. What comforted my wife most in some of those times was not necessarily that Jesus is the good Shepherd, not necessarily that Jesus is gentle and lowly and draws near to her, puts his arm around her, and wipes her tears. That’s all true. And that should bring you comfort. I’m not encouraging you to not find comfort in the Lord Jesus that way, but in that moment, my wife recognized I’m being assaulted by an enemy. And that enemy is death. Death is unnatural. Death is wicked. Death is an enemy. And in that moment, what comforted her and by extension me, is that the Lord Jesus promises to destroy death. He is angry at that. He hates that. He promises, “What’s he going to do? He’s going to grab death by the throat and cast him into the lake of fire.” That’s relating to God as your king. God protects me. He protects me like a warrior. He will oppose me and he will oppose all of my enemies.

Here’s one other specific way this might look like relating to God as your King. Relating to God as king means rejoicing in God’s judgment of the wicked. Relating to God as your king means rejoicing in God’s judgment of the wicked. I fear that many Christians at best tolerate, at worst simply choose to forget the severe judgment of God over and against the wicked. It’s like the crazy uncle. We got to keep it locked in the attic. It’s a secret. We don’t want to tell people. We’re embarrassed about it. I don’t know how to explain it—this judgment of God, eternal damnation. I don’t know what to do. We know how to relate to Christ as the sacrificial lamb, but relating to Christ as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who is coming back to conquer all his enemies, it’s like speaking a foreign language.

Brothers and sisters, God cannot be love if he is not just. God cannot be loving if he is not just. You can’t choose. You can’t pit these two against each other. The love of God for his own glory and for his own people is what compels him to mete out this exacting justice against the wicked. God is not ashamed of his justice, and neither should you. The Psalms say that righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. He screams about it. He wants people to glorify him for his justice. So you should rejoice that you serve the King of all creation, who is in himself perfectly just and completely powerful enough to deal out his judgment for the protection of his people and the glory of his name.

Learn to relate to God by relating to him as your King. Opposition and protection. That’s the first contrast between the righteous and the wicked.

2. Condemnation and Pardon

If everything I have said up to this point is true, then the question you should be asking is, how do I know if I’m righteous or wicked? There’s only two kinds of people, and the Bible won’t let you get away from that. We in human nature like to blur those lines and think everything’s gray. And the Bible wants to say there are righteous and there are wicked. And the question you got to answer is, well, how do I know? How do I know if I’m righteous or if I’m wicked? In some respects, this is the most important question in all of life.

And it brings us now to, in my opinion, what is the most stunning, shocking contrast between the righteous and the wicked in this Psalm. Look back at verse nine and ten: “For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.”

What is it that characterizes the wicked? David says, their tongue, their tongue. They are liars, deceivers, twisters of words, double speech, flattery. They follow their devil, who is the father of lies. And David vividly pictures these wicked people as having mouths that are like open tombs. Just consider, conjure up that poetic image in your mind. You’re staring into a tomb. Dead people are inside. And when the wicked who are persecuting God’s anointed king are opening their mouth in this lying, deceiving, twisting speech, David is saying, it’s like looking right into the mouth of an open grave. Their inmost self is destruction. There’s death and dying decay.

Now, I don’t think David is saying it is only your speech that makes somebody wicked. The rest of the Bible would speak to that. There are many more wicked things that men can be characterized by. He’s clearly got in view the specific kind of opposition he’s facing. Yet it is so interesting. The scriptures always seem to tie together speech with what goes in and goes on in somebody’s heart, don’t they? You could probably think of a number of texts right now. The Lord Jesus so clearly: Luke 6:45, “Of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” So when a mouth speaks lies and deceives, what’s going on in the heart? There’s death. There’s no life in a mouth that speaks that way.

Further in the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul wants to prove that all human beings, both Jew and Gentile, are condemned under sin, what does he quote? He quotes a number of Psalms, but he quotes Psalm 5. Listen to Romans 3:9–14: “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin… Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”

So Paul agrees with King David. The wicked are those who speak death. They’re characterized by lying and deception. And then King David draws the exact same conclusion that Paul does. Psalm 5:10, “Make them bear their guilt, O God; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out.”

I confess, when I read this, I could think of no more horrifying words to come from the mouth of God. That for God to say to a human being, “You shall bear your own guilt.” I mean, what worse can you hear from the mouth of God? “You wicked man, you shall bear your own guilt because of the abundance of your transgressions. You will be cast out.”

Every human being knows deep down they deserve the wrath of God. Mouths are stopped before him. Lying mouths, deceiving mouths, flattering mouths are stopped before God the Almighty Judge. There are no excuses. There are no exceptions. There are no exemptions. The wages of sin is death. Can any man stand before this God of justice and plead his own righteousness? Deep down, no one knows it’s going to work. The wickedness is too great. The transgressions are too great. The wicked will be cast out. They will be condemned by God for their transgressions.

Yet what of the righteous? What of the righteous? What of King David speaking on behalf of God’s people? What of these who he says have some claim to have access to God, who have some way to come into God’s holy temple? On what grounds? Why do they get to claim access to God and say his justice protects me? It’s not opposed to me to be welcomed into the kingdom of God and not be cast out with the rest of the wicked. I wonder how you would answer that question this morning. On what grounds are you accepted by God? On what grounds? What reason can you provide?

Psalm 5 is begging for an answer. Are you counted among the righteous or are you counted among the wicked? And how do you know? Look at Psalm 5, verse 7 for the answer. Psalm 5:7: “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.”

You notice the contrast. You see the repetition of the word “abundance.” What does it say about the wicked? Just a few verses before, “By the abundance of their transgressions, they will be cast out.” And maybe that leads you to expect what he’s about to say is that the righteous, by the abundance of their righteous works, will be welcomed into God’s holy temple. But what does it say? It says, “By the abundance of your steadfast love will I enter your house.” It’s not the abundance of good works. It’s not the abundance of the holiness you can conjure up, the obedience you can conjure up. It’s the abundance of the steadfast love of God that makes a man righteous.

If that’s not the gospel, I don’t know what is—the abundance of God’s steadfast love. It is our only hope of reconciliation to God, forgiveness of sins. God alone and his love makes a way for wicked men to be saved from the just wrath that they deserve. And that was all of us. Everyone stood condemned under the wrath of God.

If you’re asking or wondering or thinking that the love of God that David’s talking about—the abundance of the love of God welcoming righteous people into his house—is some abdication of God’s justice, how does that square with the fact that God says he’s just and that he must punish sin? I want to take you back to Romans 3 and listen to the words of the Apostle Paul again, Romans 3:23–26: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his own blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show God’s righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

The justice of God is on display in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not just the love of God. Far be it from God to abdicate or compromise his justice. He punishes Christ, the perfect Savior, in the place of ruined sinners. It’s often said that you know the gospel is a scandal. It’s a scandal of justice. And I think there’s truth to that. But I don’t think the scandal is that wicked men are pronounced righteous. A judge can do that. A judge can accept alternative payment and pronounce a man pardoned, free. There’s not much scandal in that. The scandal, if there’s any, is that Christ, the righteous man, was counted wicked. That Christ, the man who knew no sin, never once lied, never once deceived, never once rebelled against the Lord in his heart—that he was counted wicked. The righteous died for the wicked. The Son died for the rebel. The Truth died for the liar. The Humble died for the arrogant. The Life laid down his life for those who are dead.

This is the gospel. This is why you’re here. This is the hope you have. That God welcomes you into his family and uses his justice in protection of you for your good, for your eternal life and well-being.

We offer you another point of application. A moment ago I just encouraged you: relate to God as your King, right? Rejoice in the fact that God is violently opposed to the wicked. There’s a warrior-like protection he has for his people. Biblical truth often requires us to hold different things in two different hands and balance them. And we can run into problems if we just lean into one and we kind of forget the other one. So the other side of that previous application point, rejoicing in God’s judgment of the wicked, is that you are called as a Christian to love your enemies. You are called as a Christian, as a child of God, to love your enemies.

I could say it another way to tie those two points together. Relating to God as king means obeying the king’s orders, and the orders the king has given to the church is to go to all the world to speak these words of gospel life, repentance, hope of everlasting life to those who hate us, to those who are enemies of God, who are outside of the people of God.

The justice of God, which is sure, may never be used as an excuse to sit back and wait for the judgment of the wicked. Far be it from the church to abdicate that mission. This is our task. This is what we’ve got that the world needs, and nobody else has it. It’s the job that the Lord Jesus has given to us, and I can think of no better motivation to go to the world with the gospel, to speak to those in your life who are opposed to God about Jesus, than remembering that you were once like them, that you were once outside of the family of God.

And I think of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11. It sounds a lot like Psalm 5. Paul begins and says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolaters, nor the adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” That sounds like Psalm 5, right? These people will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But what does Paul say next? What is Paul saying next? He says, “And such were some of you. Such were some of you. You were just like them. And yet Christ died for you, gave his life for you, that you would be washed.” As Paul goes on, “washed, sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. You were once outside of Christ. You were once on that side of the line of the judgment of God. And yet Christ came and satisfied that justice in your place.”

If that doesn’t compel you to speak about the love of God, the offer of the gospel that goes to all the world, there’s just nothing else that will. That is the motivation to speak this way to wicked enemies. Condemnation and pardon. This is the difference between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked suffer the guilt for their own sins, but the righteous cast it onto Christ. They know that Christ has satisfied the justice of God in their place.

3. Obedience and Rebellion

If you remember from what I said at the beginning of the sermon that this Psalm, we’ve kind of bounced beginning to end, beginning to end, and we’re moving towards the middle, which I believe is the focal point of the psalm. It’s the main request. It’s the main thing that David’s actually asking God for. What is he asking God to do? He’s made all these statements about the righteous and the wicked, but you get to the heart of what he’s saying, verse 8. That’s the crux of what he’s asking God for. He says in verse 8, “Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.”

So in the face of wickedness, deceiving, satanic enemies, what does David ask? He pleads with the Lord that he would be a man characterized by righteousness. “God help me not be like that because of your steadfast love that has welcomed me into your house. Help me to be righteous. Lead me in the path of righteousness.”

Interestingly, David states his request twice, and then he sandwiches in the middle there the reason. So he’s saying, “Lead me in your righteousness. Make your way straight before me.” I think he’s saying the exact same thing in those two statements. And then in the middle, he’s given the reason: Why am I asking you, God, to lead me in righteousness? Because of my enemies. There’s these wicked men who are standing right before me.

And I think at first glance it may not exactly be obvious why David’s enemies are presenting such difficulty to David’s obedience. I think sometimes we just have a very simplistic view of the Christian life. “Doesn’t really matter what the influences in the world are doing and saying, and I just, I know what the Bible says, and I’m going to walk in obedience to it.” And there’s some truth to that. But again, the Psalms, they’re so raw. They’re so real. This is David saying, “Look, real life is hard. Obeying the Lord is difficult. I’ve got these enemies standing in my way, preventing me from obeying the Lord and walking in righteousness.”

And I think there’s a number of different reasons that are instructive, as we consider them, as to why David would say that. I think you don’t really have to pick one. I’m going to give you three. There’s probably more reasons why enemies of God and thus of his people present challenges and difficulty to us seeking to walk in the path of righteousness. I’m going to give you three reasons why I think David, and thus, by extension, we can learn from David, three challenges to obeying the Lord, walking in righteousness by wickedness in the outside world.

Number one: Discrediting God’s reputation. Why are David’s enemies preventing him from obeying the Lord? There’s this temptation of discrediting God’s reputation. Think about who King David is. He’s the king. He’s the representative. He’s the guy that the world looks to to say, “What is God like? Well, there’s King David, there’s the image, there’s the representative.” And David recognizes that any stumble, any misstep, any lapse in his holiness and his righteousness that communicates something about who God is. And it’s an opportunity, then, for the enemies to take that and to discredit God.

Now, don’t take the idea too far. Right? God’s glory you can’t change it. Your sin, you can’t change God’s glory. It’s there and he will put it on display to the world. But there is a real sense where the way Christians live, the way you live your life, says something to the people in the world around you about what God is like. And do you recognize the danger the way David does? Do you fear your sin causing a stumbling block to the way somebody looks and perceives and thinks about God? Do you long for God’s glory so much that it compels you to live a righteous life? It compels you to put off sin? “I’m not doing that. I’m not living that way. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to do these things because I want God to be glorified. I don’t want the world to discredit my God.”

Pray with King David. Pray that God would lead you in his righteousness.

So reason number one: There’s discrediting of God’s reputation.

Reason number two: There’s the challenge of moral fog. I’m calling it moral fog. There’s other ways you could say it. Consider the nature of David’s enemies. There’s lying, deceiving, flattering words, spinning all these webs of deception kind of hanging around him. And I think the effect it seems to be having is that there’s this cloud that’s kind of impending his vision. There’s all this lying and deceiving. And at times, Lord, it’s hard for me to know what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s hard for me to know what even is true anymore. These lies are so confusing. These lies are so weighing heavily upon me. I can’t discern what the right way to go is, what even to think. What would your will and your law have me do or say in this situation?

And so in that sense, David’s not just asking for strength to obey. “Lord, give me strength not to discredit your reputation.” He’s asking for moral clarity. He’s asking for in a world that wants to muddy the waters between wickedness and righteousness, to say it’s all gray and you know it’s not that big of a deal. David’s saying, “No, give me clarity. Give me eyes to see this is right and this is wrong. And I need to walk in the path of righteousness. I want you to lead me. I want you to give me clarity. Help me see.”

Pray with King David. You know what this is like. I don’t need to explain this to you. Everything’s clear in this room. Righteousness is clear. Wickedness is clear. You’re singing with God’s people. You’re worshiping with God’s people. But you know what it’s like when you wake up tomorrow morning. And the world and the flesh and the devil, they assault you. And the fog that comes wanting to know how to obey the Lord and at times wondering what is even the right thing to do. Well, do what King David does. Go to the Lord and pray. Ask God to make his way straight before you.

Thirdly, lastly, last way that David’s enemies present a challenge to his obedience and walking in the path of righteousness: There’s the temptation to vindictive retaliation. There’s a temptation to vindictive retaliation. There is an ever-present temptation in every single human heart, especially with the delay of God’s justice, to just take matters into our own hands. “If these people are going to bite me, I’m going to bite back. If these people are going to bend the rules and play dirty, I’m going to do the exact same thing. If God won’t do something about my evil, then I will. I’ll solve the problem. I’ll take matters into my own hands and I’ll fix the problem.”

Brothers and sisters, the scriptures could not be more clear. “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. It is not for you. Now that does not mean you become a doormat. That doesn’t mean you allow people to just walk all over you. There’s wisdom that comes in knowing when to defend yourself, when to speak truthfully and answer a fool and when not to. But at the end of the day, you got to sleep well at night, knowing that it’s not for you to fix it. God’s the one who promises perfect justice. He promises he’s going to fix this whole thing. We know that with crystal clear clarity from the scriptures.

You can ask in every single situation, “How can my response to wickedness directed at me please God? How can I please God? What does it look like for me to please God to walk in the path of righteousness when I am slandered, when I am lied about, when I am cheated?” That is difficult to do. But remember Jesus Christ. Remember Christ crucified. Christ was slandered. Christ was lied about. He was mocked. He was scorned, spit upon. And that’s the example he set. We are to walk in the righteousness that the Lord Jesus set an example for us.

And brothers and sisters, the path of righteousness the Lord calls you to is a holy life that speaks well of God’s character, moral clarity in a world of lies, and loving your enemies and leaving vengeance to the Lord.

Let me leave you with this. How are you to find the strength to live this way? If you’re honest with yourself, you recognize that’s a high calling that’s difficult to do. Theoretically, it makes perfect sense. But when the rubber meets the road of an enemy slandering you, how are you supposed to find the strength to live that way? There’s so many answers. There’s so many practical things I could say. I want to leave you with where King David began. Wake up tomorrow morning and seek the Lord in prayer. Psalm 5, verse 3. Wake up tomorrow morning and seek the Lord in prayer.

How does King David do it? How does King David deal with the present opposition in his life? The first thing he does is he gets up in the morning and he seeks the Lord’s face in prayer. And if that sounds underwhelming to you as a to-do as an application, you don’t understand prayer. It’s the lifeline. It’s the air we breathe. What you need, the wisdom you need, the strength you need, the moral clarity, the righteousness you need—that comes from seeking the Lord in prayer.

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to wake up and seek the Lord’s face. Remember the mighty power of God that he promises to deploy on behalf of his children, to shield you, to provide you refuge from evil. He is a shield. He is a joy to the righteous. He will lead you on the perfect path of righteousness. For our Lord, our God is not just the King of justice. He is the King of love. So seek him and you will find rest for your soul, joy, and comfort for your soul.

Let me pray.

Father in heaven, we ask now, along with King David, that you would do just that. Lead us in your righteousness, Lord, because of our enemies. Make the path of righteousness straight and clear before our eyes. And Lord, even as we walk into a world that hates you and that hates us. Help us not to be deceived. Help us not to sleep and to slumber. Lord, help us to be awake and help us to be about the mission you have entrusted us. Bringing the gospel to those who don’t know you, who are outside of Christ, who are standing even now under your just wrath and condemnation. Lord, help us to remember the gospel that Christ was crucified for us in our place, that we might be righteous before you, and that we might take that message of righteousness and forgiveness to the world. Lord, we ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.