Sermon Tone Analysis

Right before we started through our Psummer in the Psalms series, we studied 1 Samuel together.

The book of 1 Samuel is, in part, the story of David’s life.

Plucked from the field where he took care of his father’s sheep, David was anointed king over Israel.

He’d fight Goliath, serve Saul, lead the fighting against Israel’s enemies, and then end up running from Saul for several chapters until Saul was no longer in the picture.

David’s life is an interesting life.

Ups and downs, struggles and successes, good and bad, moments of joy mixed with moments of sorrow.

His life might be a little more spectacular than the average person today.

We’re not fighting giants or running for our lives (Please don’t make “fighting giants” an allegory for your struggles.

Unless you have a 9-foot-tall Philistine trying to kill you, you aren’t facing giants).

David’s life might have some higher peaks and lower valleys, but in broad strokes, it’s pretty similar to our lives.

Psalm 27 is a song, a prayer, a poem about “What Life is Like.”

This psalm is of David as the heading states.

David wrote this and about 75 other psalms in the Psalter.

This particular psalm is one of confidence and desire and dependence.

I really think this is a pretty good example of what life is like—for David and for us all these years later.

To start, David is remembering some of what he’s been through:

That’s quite the list: the wicked, my enemies and my foes, an army, war.

He’s actually remembering all the moments when he’s faced these people and these circumstances.

It’s not some future hope.

It’s not that his enemies will stumble and fall.

That phrase in Psalm 27:2 is in the past tense: it is my enemies and my foes who stumbled and fell.

David’s enemies have stumbled and fallen.

Time and time again, those who have opposed David have failed.

He’s faced this stuff on multiple occasions.

He might be facing some of this opposition as he’s composing this song, harp or lyre in hand, dealing with stress and emotions and feelings associated with being hated and hunted.

David’s remembering all of this and says, “Though [all this happens to me, even if it happens again] even then I will be confident.”

Goodness, that’s some deep faith.

He’s confident amid all this trouble, why?

Because of who the LORD is:

There it is!

The reason for His confidence: The LORD, the covenant God, Yahweh.

He is the light and the salvation and the stronghold of David’s life.

David says with all assurance and conviction: “He is my light and my salvation, the stronghold of my life.”

The LORD, the Almighty, the King of Creation is all this and more.

In darkness, the LORD is the light David needs.

In moments of distress, with his life on the line, amid enemies who’d like to have his head, the LORD is David’s salvation—deliverance, rescue, source of life.

When life is uncertain and dangerous, the LORD is David’s stronghold, keeping him safe and secure from all alarms.

This has been David’s experience which is nice for him, but it’s also just the LORD’s M.O.

(modus operandi) throughout the ages.

Think Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth.

David knows this is who the LORD is, not only from personal experience, but from history.

His ancestors are part of that great cloud of witnesses who testify to the character and work of the LORD Yahweh.

If you need to see who the LORD is, read this Book and see how He interacts with His people as their light, salvation, and stronghold.

And then look around.

See how the LORD has lightened the dark, saved the lost, held the fearful.

People in this room can testify to every bit of that.

David is singing here, expressing his confidence in the LORD.

The Confidence of Faith

This is a theme throughout Psalm 27—the confidence David has in the LORD.

It’s a beautiful theme, and timely.

David’s not expressing a fool’s hope that trouble will cease.

Trouble doesn’t disappear magically; it’s still there.

But in the day of trouble, David is confident:

And then, again, toward the end of his psalm:

Once again, oppressors and foes and false witnesses rear their ugly heads, rising up against David.

But, in faith, David can sing:

David is confident of experiencing God’s goodness to him while he is still alive.

Here and now, David’s confidence springs from his faith.

What’s true in David’s psalm is true for the author of Hebrews and it’s true for me and you.

Faith is confidence, not in ourselves or in our station of life, but confidence in the LORD; it’s confidence in the object of our faith.

Faith not a wishy-washy feeling.

Faith, when the LORD is the object of that faith, is confidence.

It’s confidence in HIM—who He is and what He can do!

David has fears.

He has more than his share of enemies.

He deals with his own sinfulness and iniquities and rebellion (Psalm 25), but he is confident in this one thing: The Lord is [his] light and [his] salvation…the stronghold of [his] life.

We can talk fears like snakes and heights and dentists (dentophobia is a real thing); we can talk about the troubles we face; we can commiserate about our “enemies” and certainly our Enemy (Satan), but in the face of all that, our faith in the LORD gives us a confidence in HIM, that the LORD our God is mightier than our mightiest fears.

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Faith is confidence—for David and for you, if your faith is in the right place.

Don’t be like our good friend, Maria, who sang, “I have confidence in confidence alone, besides which you see, I have confidence in me.”

Sing like David: “Even then—that is, even when the worst comes at me—even then I will be confident because the LORD is my light and my salvation…the stronghold of my life.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”

This is what life is like for David and for those who belong to the LORD.

Fears and trouble and enemies, but also an all-surpassing confidence in the LORD Yahweh: our light, our salvation, our stronghold, our song.

The Desire of Worship

Here David states his preoccupation and passion in terms of where (in the house of the LORD) and what (to gaze on the beauty of the LORD).

The temple, the tent, the tabernacle was the place David wanted to be; it was there he could gaze on the beauty of the LORD, reflecting upon who the LORD was and all the LORD had done.

We must remember that David, not being a high priest, would have never seen into the Most Holy Place.

He certainly never entered the Holy Place (he would have died instantly).

He didn’t enter that Place, but he knew it was there.

And so, David’s desire is clear:

The fact that there was a tabernacle, a temple, a tent where the faithful could worship the LORD speaks volumes.

It speaks of a God who had come near to His people—the God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush and who rescued His people from slavery; the God of Mt.

Sinai who declared His Law is the God of the tent who dwells in the midst of His people.

David’s longing and one desire—the one thing he asked of the LORD, the one thing he sought from the LORD—was to be in that place where the presence and glory and beauty of the LORD was.

The place where the glory of the LORD dwelled among His people was the place of true safety.

David describes it like this:

The confidence that David has in the LORD is strengthened by his time in the presence of the LORD, gazing on His beauty, contemplating all He is to His servants (I would argue the same it true for us).

There are some strong images used here.

In verse 5, there’s a marginal reading in the traditional Hebrew text—the word there is the word used of a lion’s lair.

Instead of ‘shelter’, think ‘lair’.

Picture the LORD Yahweh as a lion.

This painting from Tom Altenburg hangs in our house, a beautiful gift and a wonderful reminder of what David’s getting at here in Psalm 27.

[Show Picture]

Picture the LORD Yahweh as a lion (think: Aslan).

Now picture being hidden away in the lion’s lair, the lion’s den.

Think about how safe you’d be there.

Who’s going to mess with a lion?

In the LORD’s presence, we’re kept safe.

He has hidden us in His lair.