20250831 Psalm 4 Enjoying God in our Suffering

Depending on your stage of life, different kinds of situations can lead to distress. When I was a young boy, the thing that was most distressing to me were needles at a doctor’s office. When I got older, needles were still a problem, but interpersonal conflicts affected me more than the few seconds of pain following a needle. I was distressed when I had a falling out with a friend or when my parents would fight. As I got older, I worried about school assignments and whether a girl I liked, liked me back. Towards my later teenage years, I stressed about what I wanted to do when I grew up.

I can now look back and reflect on my distress, and as I do, there is something deeper that I find distressing. When I look back to the first half of my life, I realize so much of my distress remained unspoken. I never voiced the following, “I’m scared.” “I’m anxious.” “I’m distressed.” “I’m sad.” I did not know how to recognize my hard emotions, and I did not have a space to explore and express myself. I did not enjoy the intimacy of knowing that someone was aware of my inner thoughts and struggles. It is only now, as an adult, that I realize that even though I did not know it, I was an anxious child.

A phrase I voiced to others and received often was, “don’t be so emotional” as if emotions were a bad things. When emotions are not valued, they get suppressed. We do not learn to recognize them and express them. We learn to function and manage life as well as we can. We don’t fully know what’s going on inside us, so we are incapable of allowing others to know what is happening. This is an isolated, lonely, undercover kind of life. We are not meant to live this way.

Without deep meaningful relationships that include nuanced emotional expression, our lives lack. The Bible is a very emotional book. Joy is expressed with singing and dancing. There is despair and depression. There is restlessness of seeking the meaning in this life. There is anguish, groaning, laments, and tears. Do we express these? Do we express these to God? Do we express these to those we love? Or, are we numb?

The Psalms invite us to feel deeply and to express our emotions precisely. Emotional maturity is learning to feel big things while remaining relational with God and with others. Experiencing hard emotions while remaining relational allows us to feel empathy for others and express heartfelt compassion, mercy, and love. If we ignore emotions in ourselves, we will not know what to do with hard emotions in others. The book of Psalms offers emotional expressions to pray to God in our distress. The Psalms teach how God fits in our deepest places of distress and heartache. The Psalms remind us how God’s promises to all his people are still true even when we can’t imagine a day when we will ever be happy ever again.

Psalm 4 is a Psalm that can take us from distress to joy and peace. Ps 4:1 describes going from distress to relief. Ps 4:2-3 describe going from shame to being delighted in. Ps 4:4 describes anger turning to quietness. Ps 4:6 describes the change from doubt to joy that is independent of material possession. This joy is accompanied by peace, rest, and security.

God gave us Psalm 4 to minister to us. Whether we are struggling, or know someone who is, Psalm 4 teaches us to take pain seriously. Psalm 4 teaches us to feel deeply and while living relationally with God to experience the kind of peace that leads us to praise God and say like Psalm 4, “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!”

We will look at the themes of Knowing Hardships, Knowing God, Knowing Wholeness.

Psalm 4:2, 4, 6 Knowing Hardships

The Psalm itself does not describe the context that led to its writing. When the Psalms were collected and ordered, this Psalm’s slot in the book of Psalms added a context.

At the top of Psalm 3, the superscription says, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.” At the top of Psalm 4, the superscript says, “Psalm of David.” We can understand Psalm 4 considering the same historical context of Psalm 3. This historical context gives us an example of a scenario where this Psalm applies, but it should not limit us in the application of the Psalm in our own lives.

The Psalms are often written in such a way that they are easily appropriated by God’s people. We do not need to spend too much time trying to see if our life matches the life of the author of the Psalm before we can appropriate it. The Psalm is vague about its context so we can apply it in many situations. God gives us words to express our emotions, and to guide us amid hardship into a deeper relationship with him.

Psalm 4:2, 4, 6

The text reveals a situation of hardship. In Ps 4:2, the psalm mentions honor turning into reproach or shame. In Ps 4:4 there is the feeling of anger. In Ps 4:6 there is hopelessness.

Application

The categories of shame, anger, and hopelessness apply to our lives.

The question is do we recognize it, can we name it and express it, and remain in relationship with others while feeling those hard emotions?

These emotions are scary. Expressing them is risky. We can be dismissed as too sensitive, blamed, or misunderstood, which would add a layer to our existing shame.

We are all socialized to express or not express emotions. Some view shame as a mental weakness that facts should help us conquer. Some are scared by their anger because they have seen its destructive consequences in others. We may associate hopelessness with spiritual weakness and not trusting the LORD enough.

Shame, anger, and hopelessness are uncomfortable but they are real. If we let ourselves be touched by the news, by the state of our relationships, and by our hardships, we will feel shame, anger, and hopelessness. When we do, what do we do with these?

To enjoy intimacy with God and other people, we need to feel our feelings, share our feelings, and interact on that emotional level. This does not mean you share everything with everyone but absolutely with God and the people who know you the best.

When we suffer, we tend to do the opposite than recognize, express, and remain in relationship. We minimize our pain, we relativize our pain, spiritualize it, or we are triumphalist. We minimize by comparing our suffering to the worse suffering of others. We spiritualize by using God and Bible verses to avoid feeling our feelings. We are triumphalist by focusing on our achievements rather than feeling our hard emotions. This Psalm first invites us to know our hardships, to name them, and express them.

Psalm 4:1-5 Knowing God

We live in a world marked by sin and suffering. Sin is within us and around us. Suffering is around us and part of our experience. We will feel distress, shame, anger, and hopelessness. These feelings are not a sign of weakness but of being in touch with the real world.

Now what? We do not face our suffering as neutral beings. We are people with memories, relationships, experiences, temperaments, and beliefs. These shape how we experience our sin and suffering. People do not respond to the same things in the same way because everyone is different. Over time, we respond differently because we ourselves change. This is good news, we can change how we respond to sin and suffering!

One of the ways we change our experience of sin and suffering is by knowing God. When we have confidence in God's attributes and hope in his promises, we suffer differently. Sin and suffering are not going away in this lifetime, but knowing God can change our experience of suffering.

Psalm 4:1-5

The Psalmist knows suffering and knows God. The Psalm reveals at least four things to know about God in our distress. (1) God is with us. (2) God defines who we are. (3) God has already helped us in the past. (4) God is gracious.

First, the Psalmist knows God's presence. He knows that God hears when he calls. In Ps 4:1 the Psalmist says, “Answer me when I call O God.” Then he says, “hear my prayer.” In Ps 4:3 he says, “the LORD hears when I call on him.” This first element changes everything. One of the hardest things about hardship is the loneliness we feel. With God, we are never alone.

As an extension of God’s presence, the Christian Church must be a context in which people hear us when we call. The church is the body of Christ. We should expect to receive things from God through his church. If God hears our prayers, the church should also hear our prayers. If you are part of a church, like God, your church should be with you in your suffering. Don’t keep it to yourself.

Second, the Psalmist gets his identity from God. Still in Ps 4:1, the Psalmist says, “God, my righteousness.” On one hand the Psalmist's enemies slander his reputation and honor in Ps 4:2. On the other, God uphold his righteousness.

Many people will have different opinions about us, who do we believe? The Psalmist turns to the LORD who upholds his righteousness.

Trials and interpersonal conflict can affect our view of ourselves. Our trials may reveal our weaknesses and people may demean us. The Psalmist looks to God and says, "God, my righteousness." We are and remain righteous on account of faith because of Christ's work on the cross for us. Our hardships and weaknesses do not define us. This is a call to worship God, and to believe God and suffer while believing everything God says about us. We suffer as his righteous ones, his saints, his children, his bride, his beloved, because of Jesus. The church has a role to play in reminding us of our identity. As we live with each other, let us remind each other when one is discouraged, that God remains our righteousness.

The third thing the Psalmist believes about God according to Ps 4:2 is that he has helped him in the past. The Psalmist remembers a past experience of God’s provision, when he was in distress and God gave him relief.

We, too, must remember the past. To be a Christian is to know Christ. It is to believe in a reality that does not exist within ourselves. Our guilt condemns us, but Chris forgives us. Our strength fails us but Christ’s strength assures us. According to 1 Pet 1:8, to know Christ is to be filled with inexpressible joy. If we are Christians, it is because God has already shown us the abundance of his provision and care towards us. We are God’s forgiven children. The reminder of God’s past forgiveness strengthens us for the present. It is this statement that lies behind everything we do during our Sunday morning worship: The Reminder of God’s past forgiveness strengthens us for the present.

Fourth, the Psalmist remembers God as gracious. In Ps 4:3, the Psalmist declares that God sets apart the godly for himself. In our trials and hardship, we can rest in this truth, we belong to God. We can remember that he is a God who passes over the sins of those who trust in him. It is hard to imagine God’s grace when we are distressed. But we suffer with God rather than without him because of the grace he has given us.

Ps 4:4-5 then offers an illustration of how knowing God leads us to suffer differently. In these verses, the psalm addresses the faithful. It commands: "Be angry and do not sin." We can do this because we know God. Instead of sinning, instead of speaking an evil word, Ps 4:4-5 says, "Speak them in your hearts in your bed in silence and place your trust in God."

Even when we are innocent in a trial, as sinners, we still respond sinfully to hardships. Anger is not sin but often the way we manifest our anger is sinful. Anger often stems from experiencing injustice. Trusting God allows means we allow God to be the righteous judge rather than us. James 1:20 says, "The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." What we believe about God and his magnitude will affect how we react to the things that make us angry.

Application

In this second point, we see that Christian devotion and knowledge of God matters. We experience God in worship in song, prayer, preaching of the Word, Lord’s Supper. We also need daily devotions to meditate on God's person and work. This intimate knowledge of God helps us to suffer righteously.

Psalm 4:6-8 Knowing Wholeness

Psalm 4:6-8

Ps 4 ends with joy, rest, peace, and security in Ps 4:6-8.

I could have put that the final point was Joy, or peace, or rest, and security. But, I wanted to be careful not to treat this text as some kind of magical formula that makes problems go away. This text absolutely does promise joy, peace, rest, and security but the distressing situation does not necessarily go away.

In the life of David, he was distressed because of his son Absolom. The two are never reconciled and Absolom dies in battle. David will experience joy in the Lord, peace, rest, and security, but the trauma and grief of losing a son will not leave him until he dies.

Application

Wholeness or completeness refer to Christian maturity. It includes emotional maturity that can hold the tension of the celebratory and the hard. This maturity finds refuge in God in trials and turns to thanksgiving in times of abundance.

When we know God, we experience our circumstances differently. The more we love God, the less we will love money. The more we love God, the less we care about who won what sport. The Psalmist experiences wholeness.

He says he received more joy from the Lord than from success in business with the fruit of the harvest.

This is wholeness, even with hardships, distress, a situation that means our life will never look the same, the loved one who is gone, that health problem that will only get worse, we can say with the Psalmist, Ps 4:8 "In peace I lay down and I sleep, because you Lord alone, in safety you let me live."

To experience wholeness, we need to know hardship and know God. If we skip the hardship through denial to claim joy in the Lord, we will never become the kind of person who can both weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Wholeness, completeness, Christian maturity takes time. It takes suffering, lots of processing grief, and allowing people to witness our tears. We can't skip knowing God either or our joy will be founded on our ability to have positive thoughts but nothing eternal.

Conclusion

This Psalm is called a prayer for the night, while Psalm 3 is a prayer for the morning.

Life is messy. We are sinners and sufferers. We need to suffer well. We need to Know God well, and this will lead to maturity and the possibility of enjoying life in all its abundance that Christ brought us.

The process of knowing our suffering and knowing God makes us more complete human beings. We do not ignore suffering and we grow through it. We notice it around us and we engage other people’s suffering because we have learned to find God in our own suffering. We have experienced that he brings relief in distress and that he is a merciful God who answers our prayers.

Our knowledge of God gives us the proper context to interpret our suffering and keep it in the right proportions. If we do this, we can enjoy what this Psalm promises, joy, peace, rest, and security that are all God’s gifts to us.

Enjoying these gifts do not mean we live without suffering, hardship, despair, or depression. The Christian can experience all these, and there is also a sense of joy of the forgiveness of sins that is constant no matter what our material state. We can have a sense of peace knowing God is in control. We can let go from time to time resting in God’s sovereignty because we know that ultimately, we are secure. Even in the storms of life, when heartache is unavoidable, there can be fear, hopelessness, and still knowledge that because of Christ’s death on the cross, we are safe in God’s hands we will be forever and nothing will ever change that. After a long day, a heavy day, a stressful day… Psalm 4 is a good prayer to end the day.