Psalm 4:1-8  

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.  2 How long, O you sons of men, Will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness And seek falsehood? Selah 

3 But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself him who is godly; The LORD will hear when I call to Him.  4 Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah 

5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD.  6 There are many who say, "Who will show us any good?" LORD, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.  7 You have put gladness in my heart, More than in the season that their grain and wine increased.  8 I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

In early February of 1546, Martin Luther travelled from Wittenberg to the town of his birth, Eisleben, Germany, to settle a dispute between some of the members of his extended family.  Luther’s health had been failing for well over a year, so heading out in the middle of a cold, damp winter was probably not the wisest choice he’d ever made.  Yet he made the trip.  And it worked; he settled the dispute!  Luther was ready to go home to Wittenberg, but the morning he was supposed to leave, his heart began to beat rapidly.  He took some medication and made it back to bed.  He slept for a while, and then awoke in terrible chest pain.  The pain continued to come and go throughout the night and into the next day.  Everyone, even Dr. Luther, knew that the end was near.  His friend Justas Jonas was with him, along with a few others.  In between the fits of pain, Luther prayed and recited Psalms.  And then, for a while, there was silence.  Nothing but silence for three hours.  Finally, someone asked him if he was dying in the name of Christ.  Luther’s answer broke the silence with a clear, unequivocal, “Yes.”  Fifteen minutes later, Martin Luther breathed his last. 

On the bedside table next to where Luther’s body lay, they found a piece of paper.  He must have written it the day before, when he was still feeling relatively well.  Just a couple of thoughts he had jotted down.  It said,

“1. No one can understand Virgil's shepherd poems unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Virgil's poems about farming, unless he has been a farmer for five years.

2.   No one can understand Cicero's Letters (or so I teach), unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years.

3.   Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles.

Do not assail this divine Aeneid; no, rather, bowing down, revere the ground that it treads.  We are beggars: this is true.”

“We are beggars:  this is true.”  These were Martin Luther’s last written words.  But what did he mean by that?  When I look at you, I don’t necessarily see people who are destitute or in need.  And yet, I would still say that what Luther says here is true.  We are beggars—when it comes to our relationship with God, when it comes to our need for His word of grace in our lives, when it comes to understanding all the treasures of God’s mercy that we receive through His Son.  We are beggars.  This Lenten season for our midweek services we’re going to mine the Psalms, and try to understand what it means to be a beggar before our Lord.  And from Psalm 4, we’re shown to be beggars who are in distress.

I.

“Distress.”  When you think of the word, what sorts of thoughts come to mind?  Maybe you think of the “damsel in distress,” like Rapunzel in her high tower or Fay Wray in the old King Kong movie, trapped in the clutches of the giant ape as he climbs the Empire State Building.  Danger on every side, death around every corner. 

But distress can mean lots of other things too, right?  Think of the distress of Martin Luther in the hours before he died, the horrible pain of a heart screaming in pain because it’s not getting enough oxygen to keep pumping!  Emotional pain is also distressing—the pain not of a heart attack, but of a broken heart, a relationship that’s turned sour, a marriage on the rocks. 

Perhaps the most common distress that we face, though, is the distress that’s caused by our sins.  The distress of the tax collector in the temple, hiding in the shadows, literally beating himself up, unable to even lift his up his face, crying out to God again and again:  “Have mercy on me, a sinner!”  It’s the distress that comes from realizing what it is that we’ve been really doing:  “How long, O you sons of men, Will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness And seek falsehood?” (v. 2). 

Humanity was the glory of God’s creation, created in His image, in His holy likeness.  But then when we fell into sin we turned that glory to shame.  We covered up with fig leaves and hid behind trees, thinking maybe God wouldn’t notice.  And we’re still doing it.  Like cats chasing after the laser light on the ground, we pounce on the pleasures of this world, thinking that they’re what’s finally going to make us happy.  We set aside the rock-solid truth of God’s Word, thinking, “I know all this already, I don’t need it anymore,” and turn our attention to whatever the media’s trying to sell us on today.  That’s what sin does.  Instead of loving things with lasting value, it loves worthlessness.  Instead of seeking the truth, it seeks falsehood.     

And we know it—which is why we’re in distress!  Haven’t you ever found yourself lying awake at night, thinking about the harm that your sin has caused?  The consequences that you have to suffer as the result of your own sin?  The hurts that other people live with because of you?  The fact that by your sin you have taken the glory of God and turned it into shame?  And as long as you think about it, you can’t sleep, can you?  We toss and turn as our guilt lies heavy on our hearts.  It keeps us up because we realize that there’s nothing we can do about it.  Looking inside ourselves for answers, we find none.  We ask each other, “Who will show us any good?”—and we find that by ourselves, there’s nothing good to be had.  Because of sin’s guilt in our lives, we are beggars who are in distress.

II.

And yet we’re not without hope!  Our distress is caused by sin—but it’s also a distress that is relieved by God!  David in Psalm 4 writes, “But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself him who is godly” (v. 3).  But who is “him who is godly”?  Do you remember the time when the young man came to Jesus and called Him, “Good Teacher”?  What was Jesus’ answer?  He said, “Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but God alone” (Lk 18:19).  We can be godly in the sense that we’re believers—but the fact of the matter is that we’re still sinners; we still struggle with sin every day.  The relief we need doesn’t come from looking to ourselves, but from looking to the One who the Lord set apart for Himself: and that would be Jesus. 

Jesus was holy, without sin, perfect.  His human nature wasn’t corrupted by sin.  He sought—and proclaimed—the truth every day of His life; and instead of loving worthlessness, He loved the good and the virtuous.  He was the epitome of godliness, without even one errant thought or desire.  And yet Jesus endured more distress than anybody.  He suffered the humiliation of being betrayed by one of His own.  He endured slander and the unimaginable pain of torture by His captors.  His heart was broken as His closest followers and friends abandoned Him and denied they knew Him.  And as He hung on that cross, in addition to the pain and torment of a slow suffocation, Jesus endured all the pain of hell—the pain of being forsaken by God the Father Himself.  Why?  Because the Lord in His great love and mercy, chose to help us beggars by becoming a beggar Himself.  And by Christ’s suffering and death on that cross, He paid for every last sin, taking away our guilt, so that God now declares you righteous in His sight through faith in His Son. 

We are still beggars who are in distress.  Memories of the things we’ve done still come flooding back, and we find ourselves in continual need of the relief that only the cross of Christ can give.  And yet, in those moments, David, our fellow beggar tells us where to go to find relief.  He says, “Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.  Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD” (v. 4-5).  Repent.  Call upon the Lord in prayer.  Look to His mercy.   Ask for His forgiveness.  Seek the relief that can only be found in the good news of what Jesus has done for you.  And then lie down in peace, and sleep! (v. 8)

You can seek relief from God freely because you know that His help is always there.  In the power of the Gospel, the Lord always grants us hope; He always grants us peace.  That’s where the LORD relieves us in our distress (v. 1) and puts gladness in our hearts (v. 7).  And that gladness and relief—it’s like it’s new every time we hear it!  That’s what Luther himself was thinking about as he neared his own death.  You can plumb the depths of the Gospel for a hundred years, and you’d never even come close to finding all of the riches that God has given us in Christ.  We are beggars, this is true.  But the LORD alone gives us all that we need.  Amen.