Praying to the God of Tight Places!

Ps. 4 is a song of remembrance and mercy before God. It is a prayer and testimony of appreciation to God. Know that you’re safe in Him. Sometimes you just have to learn to be still and trust God. David encourages us to trust the God of tight places and keep pressing in this Psalm. 

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Transcript

Press means to apply force.

When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation.

He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Psalms chapter 4.

That's where we're starting today. And we're blessed to be here and I'm excited to look at it with you. This Psalm is attributed to David.

But remember these Psalms are a song.

So the Psalm, it goes between talking to the audience, talking to themselves, talking to God.

So all of them are somewhat mixed together.

What we don't know is the backstory of this song. We don't know what prompted David to write it. But we do know David was moved to sing about God that day.

And he started the song by saying, "Hear me when I call, oh God of my righteousness.

Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.

Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer."

That's where he starts.

God, hear me.

Have mercy.

You're the one who came for me when I was in the middle of my own struggles, my own issues.

That word distress means a tight place. God, you met me in a tight place. I don't know if there's anybody out there who can testify to that, but God has met me in some tight places where I didn't have any wiggle room. There was no more room for error.

I'd already done that.

But he met me in some tight places.

And he's saying, God, even now have mercy upon me and hear my prayers.

Then he begins to say to their audience, I would think, oh you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing or lying?

But know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call him.

Can I tell you there's nothing wrong with being set apart? There's nothing wrong with being different. There's nothing wrong with not fitting in with everybody. There's nothing wrong with standing up and saying, you sons of men, how long will you stay here?

And then recognizing, I can still be set apart.

I do not have to mix with everybody just because they're out there.

But when I'm set apart, the Lord has set me apart because he does that with the godly for himself. And the benefit is, let me explain. That's what the colon is for. The colon tells you when you see it in a sentence, what comes after the colon explains what came before it. So in verse three, the part before is, but know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. But what comes after that is the Lord will hear when I call unto him.

He hears me because I'm set apart. He's hearing me because he knows where he put me. He's hearing me because he knows I'm godly and he preserved me for him. He goes on to say, stand in awe and sin not.

Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Again, we see that colon where standing on a sin not is explained by commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still.

Sometimes you've got to talk to yourself.

You know, I don't think that was a thing just for the biblical days. Perhaps some of you do like I do and at night that is the time that I am talking to God as I fall asleep.

Especially if it's been a rough day, I will lay there and just talk to the Lord. And it's really also talking to myself, making decisions, making resolve based on whatever happened in that day or is happening in that season. But that is the point where it's been decided many a times for me how I'm going to act.

He goes on to say, offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord.

Keep doing what's right. Keep moving forward.

Don't let this stop you.

Keep giving God the extra. Keep pressing.

And trust God with your sacrifice.

Sometimes that is a difficult thing because if it's a sacrifice then it is something of value to you. It's not something you didn't want. When you don't want something and you give it away, you don't think about it again. But when you're talking about a sacrifice, it is something that you would feel the absence of it missing. And so to give it away, it is a challenge to you. But with the challenge of sacrifice, with the challenge of giving to God, put your trust in the Lord.

The Bible says there'll be many that say, who will show us any good?

Again, he's singing. But he also answers the question.

Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

Not let me be good. Not I want to be the way, but God, we need to see your face. We need to see the presence of God. We need to see who you are, your countenance.

When the Bible speaks of countenance, that word talks about the face, the presence, the disposition.

We need to see you.

And it goes on rejoicing.

Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

God, I'm so excited about you. I'm excited about your presence. I'm excited to offer sacrifices of righteousness. I'm excited to be set apart for you that you've put me for yourself to the side.

I am more excited about you than I am about having all this stuff. More than having a storehouse of corn or wine.

I am glad to have you. You know, every prayer doesn't have to just be about what God can do for you. It is a good thing to also just give thanks to say, God, thank you for letting me know you. David is showing us you can have houses, you can have land, you could have a kingdom.

And actually we don't know at what point this he wrote this.

He could have written it as a shepherd boy. He could have written it as a king.

What we do know is that David is making it known that all of these things are nothing compared to the gladness that the Lord puts in my heart. We don't need outside things for our hearts to be glad when we have the Lord.

He can make your soul happy. He and he alone.

What if we didn't need the money? What if we didn't need the job? What if we didn't need the supplements? What if we didn't need to take a medication? What if we were just happy with where God put us? David is declaring, I'm happy with Jesus.

Every prayer, like I said, is not about wanting something.

It is a good thing to be happy with Jesus.

I am happy because I have you. I am happy because you're with me.

Let God today put that gladness in your heart. I know he wasn't asking for gladness in this prayer. He was celebrating gladness.

But there's so much going on in our world. There's so much sadness, so much tribulation.

We can try to help. We send things. We we give food. We give money. We give our time and our efforts. And then for ourselves, we're doing me time and rest time and self care and all these things.

But at the end of the day, I need God to make me glad. Like that kind of glad that goes to my core. And I'm praying today that you'll take that gladness that nothing outside of God will control the gladness of your heart.

David goes on to write, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. That may sound like a simple line, but the idea that I can go to sleep at night and have peace is priceless. Peace is something money can't buy. Peace is something you can't replace. Peace is something nobody can give you. You can try to use different things to establish a measure of peace, but only God can make it such that I can lay down at night and I am at one.

I am settled.

I'm not all over the place.

I am at peace.

And he says, for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety. Today, let's be grateful to God for safety.

Not safety dictated by the neighborhood we live in or by how much money we have or the security of those around us. But the safety that comes from being in God. There's safety that comes from being in God because we know that anything that touches us has to go through God. And if God allows it through to touch us, then he's already planned to use it. That's what Job showed us a few weeks ago that even when things touch us, they can't take us without God's permission.

So we're safe in him. I pray today that we'll take joy in being safe in God. I pray that we not get restless in his safety, nor take advantage of it, but that we'll trust it and will appreciate him and that we'll continue to grow closer to him. And one way to do that is through prayer because prayer reaches every single situation.

Y'all have a blessed day.

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Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears?

I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows?

How will I know God is answering?

And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you.

It's too quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit press to pray.com.