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THE SON SUFFERS BECAUSE OF HIS PASSION FOR GOD AND GOD'S PEOPLEPsalm 69:1-18INTRODUCTION For many centuries the church has used this week of every year to pay more particular attention to the final days of Jesus' life on this earth, his death and his glorious resurrection. We have made it a habit at River Hills Community Church to join with that historical tradition by giving attention to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and then Easter Sunday. During the past few years I have been using some of the poetic songs recorded in the OT book of Psalms to help us think about Jesus and what he has done for us. I have several reasons for doing this. First, the NT as it records the events of Jesus’ life in the four gospels and then what those events mean in the letters regularly quotes from the Psalms. Therefore, these psalms are first and foremost about Jesus as he is revealed through the life and experiences and prayers of David and the other psalmists. Second, the psalms, as the prayers of Jesus, give us insight into the interior life of Jesus as he lived and suffered for us. Third, I hope by these sermons to help you to not only understand the Bible better, especially the psalms, but also to be able to use the psalms in your own prayer life with greater confidence. Psalm 69 is one the most quoted of the Psalms in the NT. We heard read for us two of the places it is quoted and two that allude to it. In John 2 when Jesus throws out the moneychangers and merchants from the temple John records that the disciples upon observing his zeal for God’s house remembered this Psalm, which in v. 9a says, “zeal for your house consumes me.” John 7 records the opposition and unbelief of Jesus’ biological brothers and calls to mind v. 8, “I am a stranger to my brothers…” Then in John 15:25 as Jesus reflects on the hatred of the world towards him he quotes v. 4, “they hated me without reason.” Also, in John 15 Jesus says that the hatred people have for him is the same hatred they have for his Father, which is also what vv. 7 and 9 say. There are more connections in this Psalm to the NT but these are the ones in this first portion of the psalm that we are considering today. On Good Friday we will meditate on vv. 19-21 and then on Easter we will examine vv. 22-36. While David wrote this psalm and therefore it has a particular, historical meaning, which we will observe, yet he, as God’s prophet was also writing about his greater Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. So we discover here something of the experience of Jesus and of his purposes and way of life. Our objective in each of these sermons will be to see something of the greatness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. There are many here this morning to whom Jesus is not a treasure. You may even say you believe in him but he is not yet the focal point of your life. I urge you to listen to these sermons prayerfully: telling God you are sorry for not prizing Jesus and asking him to enable you to see the greatness of Jesus as he is revealed in these passages. The first thing to note about this psalm is how great the distress of Jesus was as he lived upon this earth. We catch momentary glimpses of Jesus’ distress in the record of his life in the NT but nothing like this psalm reveals to us. Jesus’ experience from his birth to his death was an experience of great distress. In vv. 1-3 his experience as the sinless Son of God living among us is compared to the feeling of a person who is caught in quicksand on the bottom of the river. As he sinks in the mire the water climbs up his body and is on the verge of swallowing him up. When I was about ten years old I was trout fishing with my dad in a small stream in central Wisconsin. I had hip waders on and as I fished, wading in the stream, I suddenly stepped off the firm sand bottom into mud. As I struggled to pull up my feet I only began to sink deeper into the mud. As the water came over the tops of my boots and began to fill them I panicked and yelled for my dad. He came over and literally pulled me out of my boots and set me up on the shore. It took him a long time to pull my boots out of the quagmire and I had to wear wet boots the rest of the day. While I was not in any danger of drowning, if my dad had not been there I’m not sure what would have happened. This is the metaphor that David uses to describe his and our Lord Jesus’ experience. The water is up to his neck. His feet are sinking in the mud at the bottom and he cannot get a foothold. The more he struggles the worse it gets. The waters are about to engulf him. He continually cries out for God to save him. He has been stuck so long and is in such distress that his throat is (literally) scorched and his eyes have grown weary waiting for God to deliver him. The idea here is of a person weeping in distress and incessantly crying out for help because he is about to drown. Beginning in v. 4 he describes the reality that the illustration portrays. The reason he is in such distress is because those who hate him for no reason outnumber the hairs on his head. Those who are his enemies without cause are numerous and they are out to destroy him, to annihilate him. The last line shows that he is being falsely accused of wrongdoing and the authorities are unjustly punishing him. They require him to repay what he did not steal. People who wanted to destroy him hated this perfect man who always loved God and always loved people perfectly, who always did what was right. Over the course of my life I have known a few people who have hated me. While usually the level of animosity has been unjust, yet I am not able to say, except in one case, that their hatred had no reason at all. There is one time however; when I was in 8 th grade that someone for no reason hated me. I was in a summer school class. One day as a friend and I walked out of the class two older boys I did not know met us. The one boy said to me, “Come with me. We are going to fight.” I protested but he took my arm and dragged me up the steps of the school to a landing. He told me that we would fight until there was blood drawn. We put up our fists and then he smacked me in the face. I could taste blood and so I opened my mouth and showed him my lip that was bleeding and told him the fight was over and my friend and I left. The next week as I was at the public swimming pool the same boy whose name I still did not know came up to the fence and began yelling at me and telling me he wanted to fight me. I could not ignore this public taunt and so trembling all the way I went out of the pool and “fought” the boy in front of the crowd of swimmers who had also left the pool. All I did was keep backing away from him until one of the lifeguards came and rescued me. I road my bike home that afternoon sobbing all the way. I was in such distress the rest of that summer. I was terrified to leave my house and did not return to the pool. That was just one enemy who was not very powerful. Spurgeon, the great British preacher of the 19th century, comments about Jesus on the basis of this verse, “…from his cradle to his cross, beginning with Herod and not ending with Judas, he had foes without number…” Everywhere Jesus turned, even in his own family, he was hated and scorned. While this hatred had no just cause we can see in the second half of v. 9 the unjust cause of human hatred for Jesus. He says, "the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." The Son of God tells his Father that the reason he has enemies without number is because his Father has enemies without number. In other words the hatred of humanity for Jesus is the hatred humanity has for God himself. Jesus was and is hated with the hatred the world has for God himself. While the crowds were amazed at his teaching and miracles, the moment he did not do as they wanted they turned on him, screaming for his death. His “popularity” only lasted as long as he pleased the crowds. But when he was arrested the crowds had no use for him and so poured out their disappointed rage upon him. Humans are happy with gods who cooperate with their own desires and ambitions but the True God who orders the events of life and who commands that we obey his law is hated by all men in their natural condition. And so humanity hated and continues to hate Jesus, the Son of God. Verse 12 is a shocking description of the kind of scorn and mockery that is poured out on the perfect Son of Man. Those who sit in the gate are the rulers of the people and they mock him. Literally they use his name as an insult, a proverb of contempt. At the same time he is the song of the drunkards. Again, Spurgeon says, “What a wonder of condescension is here that he who is the adoration of angels should stoop to be the song of drunkards!” Jesus is hated and scorned and mocked and threatened at every turn, even by his family, for no reason. This did not just begin when he was betrayed but was his lifelong experience of living among us. The question that I want us to consider briefly this morning is this: why and how did Jesus live in this cauldron of hostility? Why did he put up with it and how did he put up with it? My main goal is to see his glory but we will also discover something of how we are to live when unjustly hated by others. MAIN POINT Jesus embraced a life of unjust rejection by and hatred from others, including his family, because…I. He is zealous for God’s glory (vv. 7 & 9-11) Most of us, when we feel hated or rejected by others, withdraw from any contact with them. Not so with Jesus. He kept doing his Father’s will even though doing so continually provoked hostility and hatred. How did he do this? In v. 7 he says through the prophet, “I endure scorn for your sake.” This doesn’t only mean that people scorn him because they scorn God but it also tells his motivation. He believes that doing the Father’s will and thus being abused is greater pleasure than not doing his will but enjoying the approval of others. He wants to please God, not men and so he keeps loving God and men even though doing so increases the animosity of people. This is what shows the glory of God. Jesus points out this connection in John 4 when he tells his disciples, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” Food is what gives pleasure to and satisfies the hungry person. When a hungry person eats a sumptuous meal you can observe the glory of the food by the way in which the person eats it. If a hungry person shuns the food we know it is not good, it is not great food. The greatness of the food is shown by the pleasure the eater takes in it and then by how he recommends the food to others. In the same way, Jesus says that the thing he hungers for, that which satisfies him, that which pleases him is doing the will of God because God is himself glorious to Jesus. We see the same sentiment expressed in Psalm 69:9. Jesus says, “zeal for God’s house consumes me.” His heart burns with a fervent desire that his Father be rightly worshipped and glorified. In John 2, when he cleansed the temple he was displaying his displeasure at the false worship that was occurring in the temple. His anger in the temple displayed how passionate he was that God be rightly worshipped. It is very important to note that when the apostle John quotes this verse in John 2 that he changes the tense of the verb “consume.” Rather than saying that the disciples remembered that it was written, “zeal for God’s house consumes me,” he said “zeal for your house will consume me.” He changes the present tense found in the Psalm to a future tense. In other words the zeal for God’s glory is not only his burning passion but also will be the cause of his being consumed at the cross. His entire life, culminating in his death and resurrection is for the purpose of creating true worship of his Father. Zeal for God’s glory motivates him and his life is consumed on the cross for the sake of God’s glory being known and admired in the world. During this election year we regularly hear the supporters of the three main presidential candidates interviewed on radio and TV. As you listen to these supporters talk it is very clear that they admire their particular candidate. If they perceive that their candidate is being dishonored they will speak and act in order to defend their candidate. Most of those who are interviewed are giving time and money to make sure that the glory of their candidate is known and admired by others. They regularly put up with loss of sleep and money and willingly endure the displeasure of others for the sake of their candidate. Zeal for spreading a passion for the glory of their candidate motivates them and consumes or "uses up" their life. If their candidate wins how great will be their pleasure and joy. All the suffering and animosity they endured will have led to their candidate’s glory and they will count all that loss gain because their candidate is being admired and trusted by others just as they admire and trust their candidate. This is what motivates Jesus to keep living for God even though doing so provokes the hostility of men and will ultimately result in his death. He is anticipating that great day when people from every tribe and tongue and language and nation will join in the worship of his Father. They will glorify the Father because of his enduring scorn and willingly being the song of drunkards and being hated for no reason. No amount of unjust hatred or mockery can deter him from doing all he can do to promote the glory of his Father because his greatest pleasure is displaying God’s greatness. Please don’t miss this. Jesus feels like he is about to drown under the flood of human hatred and yet he persists in doing what provokes human hatred because he is consumed with zeal for God’s glory. What sustains him is a passionate love for his Father and his Father's glory. Jesus embraced a life of unjust rejection by and hatred from others, including his family, because… He is zealous for God’s glory
II. He is zealous for the salvation of God’s people (vv. 6 & 9-11) I want you to understand how v. 5 fits into the flow of the Psalm before I deal with v. 6. Verse 5 is not primarily a confession of guilt but rather a point of contrast with the false accusations of those who hate David and Jesus for no reason. These enemies make false accusations. I don’t know if you have ever been falsely accused but it is a very troubling experience. It is a terrible thing to have your reputation besmirched and not be able to defend yourself. The first refuge for the falsely accused innocent person is God’s complete knowledge of your guilt and innocence. What David says is this, “Here I am being hated and accused of all this bad stuff and I can’t defend myself. I’m punished and held accountable for wrongs I’ve never done but God, you know what I have done and not done. I don’t have to answer to these men but to you. You have perfect knowledge of my folly and guilt and so I’m not going to worry about what these people are saying but be concerned only for what you say.” Now, in the case of David, he actually had folly and guilt that God knew about. He knew as he expressed in other psalms that God forgave his sins because of Christ. However, Jesus can pray this with a clear conscience. When he says, “You know my folly and my guilt.” The Father says, “I know and you have none because you always do what I want. You are always pleasing to me.” But the point is in both the case of David and of Jesus that the way they handle the false accusations and bad opinion of men is by taking refuge in God’s perfect knowledge and of God’s full acceptance based upon his complete knowledge of them. While it is very distressing to be hated by men, yet Jesus ultimately cares only about the opinion of his Father. What Jesus prays next in v. 6 is astonishing. He prays for God’s people, not for himself. This is just like John 17. Jesus is minutes away from being betrayed and tortured and killed and who is he praying for? He prays for his apostles and for us who believe in him through the testimony of his apostles. So here in Psalm 69:6 his prayer is that all those who are hoping in God, who are seeking God not be ashamed and humiliated because of him. What exactly is Jesus asking for? First of all, these two verbs that are translated “be disgraced” and “be put to shame” in the NIV are used numerous times in the Psalms. They are often used together. Listen to a few of these verses: Psalm 25:3, “ No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.” Psalm 31:17, “Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave.” Psalm 40:14, “May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.” The point is that the idea of being ashamed or disgraced is not merely a reference to some subjective, psychological state. Rather these words are an expression of God’s objective judgment against the wicked. As Psalm 31:17 says, “…let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave.” So he isn’t praying that the people of God not be embarrassed by him. Rather he is praying that as the people of God see the suffering of Christ they not shrink back from trusting and following him and thus experience the shame and disgrace of God’s judgment upon them. What he is praying for us is that Luke 9:26 not be true of us: “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” In other words if you reject the suffering and crucified Christ now then when he comes he will reject you and subject you to the shame of hell. So Jesus prays that as we see his suffering we not be turned away from him but be drawn to him so that we will escape that day when the wicked will be put to shame. He is praying for us what he prayed for Peter on the night he was betrayed. Remember in Luke 22:31 Jesus says, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail…" Jesus knows that when Peter sees him arrested and beaten and crucified and when he is threatened with the same that he is going to be in danger of being ashamed of Christ and thus in danger of being put to shame by God at the final judgment. Thus Jesus prays Psalm 69:6 for him and for all of us who belong to him, "May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, Yahweh Almighty…" This zeal for the good of God’s people is also seen in v. 9. When he says that zeal for God’s house consumes him it is not only referring to his zeal for the glory of God but also his zeal for the salvation of God’s people. How do I know this? I know this primarily because in the NT the house of God is us, the church. Paul in 1 Timothy 3:14-15 says to his young protégé, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.” So Jesus weeps and fasts and endures scorn and is the song of drunkards for our sake. He endures all this so that we might become the house of God, the place where God dwells. It is an astonishing act of love that the sinless Son of God who is worshipped by angels has so willingly endured such contempt and such distress for us. He was consumed not only for his zeal for God’s glory but also for his zeal for your salvation if you are one of those who is not ashamed of him and who hopes in God and not yourself or any other created being. Please do not pass this by. Jesus prays for you and is consumed for you if you are hoping in God and seeking God. Christ's suffering is of no benefit to you if you are hoping in some other salvation or if you are seeking some other goal. Is knowing God and being accepted by him the greatest good in your life or are you seeking some other treasure? If God himself is your treasure than Christ prays for you and was consumed for you. Jesus embraced a life of unjust rejection by and hatred from others, including his family, because… He is zealous for God’s glory
III. He trusts his Father for deliverance (vv. 1 & 13-18) We discover another astonishing thing about Jesus Christ in vv. 13-18. He is the king of the universe. By his mere command a raging sea became as still as glass. By his word a legion of demons left a man who up to that point was uncontrollable. By his word he raised dead people to life again and fed thousands with a few loaves and fish. This is the son into whose hands the Father has given all authority. Yet, this son does not take matters into his own hands. He does not seek revenge. He does not defend himself. Rather he prays to the Lord and asks him to deliver him “in the time of his favor.” In other words, in v. 13, after expressing how desperate is his condition he tells his Father to choose the time of his deliverance. This prayer is an expression of what is meant by Peter in 1 Peter 1:23 where he says, “When he suffered he made no threats. When they hurled their insults at him he did not retaliate. Instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” In this prayer he entrusts himself into the hands of the perfect judge. He trusts that God will rescue him and deliver him from those who hate him. He trusts that God will prevent the floodwater from engulfing him, the deeps from swallowing him and the pit from closing its mouth over him. He depends on the mercy and loving-kindness of God. God loves him and will deliver. The enemies will not have the last word. Yet, there is submission to the will of the Father. Do it in the time of your favor. This is how Jesus endures the engulfing hatred of humanity. He prays without ceasing, trusting his heavenly Father to rescue him at exactly the right time. Right from the beginning of his life, beginning with Herod, people plotted to kill him. On several occasions people took up stones to stone him. The people in his own hometown of Nazareth reacted in anger and hatred when he claimed to be the Messiah and so they sought to push him off the cliff. But in each of these cases God delivered him because his time had not yet come. Jesus’ entire life bears witness to God hearing the prayer of his Son and repeatedly rescuing him from the hatred of his enemies until it was time for him to die. But then, in that glorious resurrection he fully answered this prayer. God kept the floodwaters from engulfing him, the deeps from swallowing him and the pit from shutting its mouth over him. The third day following his brutal murder was the day of God’s favor and it was on that day that all the prayers of Jesus were answered. God redeemed his life from the pit and ransomed him from his captors. I don’t know what the floodwaters are that have come up to your neck or what mire you are in danger of sinking into but this I do know. You do not need to take matters into your own hands. You can pray and ask God, according to his great mercy to rescue you, to keep the floodwaters from engulfing you, the deep from swallowing you, the pit from closing its mouth over you. But you must ask, as does your Lord, that God would answer in the time of his favor. That time may not be until the resurrection, just as it was with Jesus. But what you can be sure of is that the time of God’s favor will come if you belong to Christ. So you and I must entrust ourselves into the hands of the one who judges justly and wait for him to answer. There was a purpose to all that hatred and all that suffering that Christ endured for our sake and so there is a purpose to all the hostility and trouble that comes to us as we follow him. We must follow our Lord in not taking matters into our own hands but in crying out, "Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love, in your great mercy turn to me." Jesus embraced a life of unjust rejection by and hatred from others, including his family, because…
© Copyright 2008 John Swanson.
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