It’s About the Heart
At the end of Acts, Paul is teaching the Jewish leaders in Rome about Jesus. Some were convinced, some weren’t. So he quotes Isaiah 6 to them, where the Lord says to Isaiah that some people will hear but not understand, see but not perceive. And the reason why is because their “heart has grown dull.” He says they can’t see or hear because their hearts don’t understand. The Lord says that if they understood at a heart level, he would “heal them” (Acts 28:26-27).
These Jewish leaders had more Bible knowledge and morality than all of us put together. But they didn’t have the heart to see Jesus for who he is. They needed new hearts.
Christianity is a heart religion. Unlike every other religion, Christianity teaches that the way to life and wholeness and salvation is through internal change, not external change. Religious rituals and practices aren’t the way to God. Christianity says that, through Jesus, God’s goal is to make us new people, not just give us new behaviors.
But even after this, even after God gives us new hearts through the new birth, our hearts are torn. They’re new, but they still have issues. The newness of our hearts doesn’t mean we won’t struggle. In fact, one of ways we know we have a new heart is because we finally see the struggle against sin and unbelief and fear for what it is, and we enter the battle.
A new heart is still frustrated by frustrating things, hurt by hurtful things, angry about unjust things, but it doesn’t react with rage or withdrawal or retribution. It hangs on to hope, hangs on to Christ, doesn’t give up, keeps going when things are hard, and doesn’t back down because it knows what’s truly important in life. This is us as a church right now. And this is David in Psalm 4.
A Divided, but Unwavering Heart
In Psalm 4, David is wrestling with his heart. He’s still in a season of suffering, likely still on the run from Absalom. Psalm 3 showed us that his heart was full of faith and fixed on the Lord (v. 3), but he’s struggling. He’s confused and growing impatient. He wonders how long people will keep coming against him.
But something else is happening in David’s heart, and this is true for every true believer. Even though his heart is struggling with fear, his heart is also fixed on things that don’t change. Everyone who has a new heart keeps hanging on to these truths no matter what else they feel. David’s heart is divided but his faith is unwavering.
This psalm also shows us that David’s faith wasn’t a pie in the sky sentimentality, not just about abstract principles. His faith wasn’t afraid to call sin sin. His new heart gave him courage to call his enemies to repentance.
In this psalm, we’ll see David’s distress in verse 1, David’s demands in verses 2-5, and David’s declaration in verses 6-8.
David’s Distress
In verse 1, we see David’s distress. He says that the Lord has given him relief but he’s praying for yet more relief. His life is no different than ours. Deliverance from one difficulty doesn’t result in deliverance from all difficulties.
Nonetheless, David remembers what God has done and it gives him confidence in what God will do. His prayer in the present is drawing strength from the past, “You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me again!”
But God’s past work isn’t the only thing steadying David’s heart. The thing most steadying and strengthening for his heart is in the truth of who God says he is, “O God of my righteousness!” or “God of my right.”
David has been wronged and deeply wounded. His own son Absalom turned his people away from him and drove him away from his home by telling the people that David wasn’t giving the people justice, that he wasn’t a good enough king and that he could be a better king. What Absalom did was unjust and was not right.
Even though he’s being accused of wrong, David knows that his identity is safe in God because God is his righteousness. God is David’s right even when things are going wrong.
“O God of my righteousness” may be the most important phrase in the psalm. David’s honor is under attack (v. 2), but he knows that the ultimate basis of his honor is God. As one commentator says, David “has a basis of identity that transcends the judgments of others – the relation to God.”[1] God is the one on whom his “rightness” depends.
Who Makes Us Right?
What does your “rightness” depend on? Your wholeness, your identity? Who’s judgment are you looking to make your heart feel right? Maybe you’re desperate for your parents’ approval, so you’re working hard to succeed and prove that you’re better than they thought you could be? Maybe you’re desperate for friends to like you and want to be around you so you put on masks and turn into whatever you think people want you to be, whatever you think will win their approval? Maybe you’re desperate for a man or woman to see you as attractive and so you agonize over your appearance? Maybe you long for the affection of a spouse, someone to soothe the ache in your soul and take away the abiding loneliness, so you drop your standards in order to feel right and whole and safe? What does your “rightness” depend on?
David knows that the only thing that makes him right is God, “O God of my righteousness!” He knows that our rightness is finally only a matter that God can decide. As Isaiah says, “The one who vindicates me is near; who will contend with me?…Who has a case against me? Let him come near to me! In truth, the Lord God will help me; who will condemn me? Indeed, all of them will wear out like a garment; a moth will devour them” (50:8-9, CSB)
Or as Paul says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31) And, “We have been declared righteous by faith” (5:1). In Christ, God is totally for us! He tells us who we are, makes us right, approves and accepts and affirms us and lavishes affection on us. Jesus sets us free from performance-based acceptance, freeing us from the slavery of hoping that our parents, friends, work, spouse, or kids will accept us and like us and make us whole.
In David’s distress, he not only remembers what God has done in the past, but more importantly, he remembers who he is in God. When all else fails, God is his righteousness and his honor.
David’s Demands
David’s rightness in God doesn’t mean he doesn’t have something to say about those attacking him. A new heart rests in righteousness and demands righteousness. In verses 2-5, David demands that those far from God repent and put their trust in the Lord.
A Rebuke
These verses are addressed to David’s enemies. He’s rebuking them in verses 2-3 and then calling them to repentance in verses 4-5. In verse 2, David wonders out loud how long his enemies will persist in their ways. “How long” indicates that David has been in this season for a while and wonders if there’s an end to it. His appeal is, “Lord, enough is enough.” He doesn’t know how much longer he can live with this pain.
The two halves of verse 2 are connected. The humiliation of the first half of the verse is the result of the delusion and lies of the second half of the verse. In other words, David’s authority is under fire because of the slander and false words of his enemies.
These enemies, like Absalom, have attacked David’s honor, loved empty words, and searched out lies. They’ve devoted their life and energies to worthless and deceptive things.
And David calls it out and says in verse 3 that the Lord doesn’t link arms with people like that. The Lord’s fellowship, the giving of “himself,” is for those who walk in his ways. That God chooses his people for fellowship with himself is an antidote to the most wounding discouragement. God wants to live with his people.
But David also tells these enemies that they’re messing with the wrong person, for “the Lord hears when I call to him” (v. 3b). David has God’s ear, and God has his people’s back. So messing with God’s appointed leaders and God’s covenant people is serious business.
A Call to Repent
David rebukes his enemies in verses 2-3 and then calls them to repentance in verses 4-5. He’s telling them how to respond to what he’s told them. The term for “be angry” in verse 4 has the connotation of a trembling agitation. David wants them to be perturbed, but to not sin. Old Testament scholar Jim Hamilton explains what David is calling these men to do. He says, “It is as though they are being instructed to work through their rage against Yahweh’s king, and against the announcement that they will not overcome him, in a way that vents emotion but does not persist in rebellion or transgress God’s laws. They can be angry about God’s purposes if they can do so in a way that refrains from ongoing sin and refuses future rebellion.”[2]
The second part of verse 4 tells them how to do this. The picture is of a man who’s, as Hamiliton says, “been in rebellion realizing his error, reflecting on the judgment he faces, and thinking his way through to repentance and submission.”[3] David says this is the process his enemies need to go through to work through their rage against him and the Lord. These men who’ve “loved vain words” (v. 2) need to stop talking and deal with their sin.
Paul quotes this verse in Ephesians 4, where he’s teaching former pagans how to leave their old life behind and live in ways that please the Lord: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (vv. 26-27). Paul tells believers to work through their emotional anger in healthy, God-glorifying ways, to not let it fester because that opens up room for the devil to work.
Back in Psalm 4, verse 5, David calls his enemies to worship the Lord with a righteousness and trust that pleases him. While fleeing the capital city, David is kind enough to tell his enemies what they need to hear the most, namely, that if they’ll repent and believe, they can be saved.
David’s Declaration
In verses 6-8, we see David’s declaration. What’s he declaring? He declares that his joy isn’t determined by circumstances (v. 7) and that he’s at peace because he knows the Lord is watching out for him (v. 8). The psalm concludes with David’s experience of grace.
The mood of some around David is that there’s no good to be found (v. 6a), but David pleads for the Lord’s light to shine (v. 6b). The defeatists words are met with David’s longing for God. Some long for better times; David longs for God. May this be so in our church.
Verse 7 is the classic contrast between inner and outer joy, the first, Derek Kidner says, “welling up steadily from God through every discouragement, the second the rare product of a pleasant set of circumstances.”[4]
David’s heart is heavy with fear and frustration, but his heart also knows there’s more joy in God than any abundance the earth can provide. David declares that he has more in God than the rich have in the overflow of resources. As Psalm 73:25-26 says, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Healing a Divided Heart
David’s heart is trusting in the Lord, at peace with the Lord, and feels safe with the Lord (v. 8). The Lord has brought him relief (v. 1). But he wonders how long he’ll be unfairly treated (“How long” two times in verse 2). His heart is trusting and tired. His heart is faithful and fearful. His heart reminds me a lot of mine, and probably yours.
How can our divided hearts be healed, be brought back together? Only as we let the healing wounds of Jesus remind us what God did to make us right, to make us whole.
Charles Spurgeon wrote a little devotional on Psalm 4:2. He points out how Jesus was “honored” by his enemies with a “procession of honor,” where he carried his cross while being shouted at and taunted. How he was “honored” with “the wine of honor,” where instead of wine they gave him vinegar mixed with gall. How he was “honored” with the “guard of honor,” where the guards at the cross gambled over his clothes. How he was “honored” with the “throne of honor,” where they put him on a cross because that’s what they thought he deserved. How he was “honored” with a “title of honor,” not just “King of the Jews,” but “King of thieves,” because they preferred Barabbas over him and placed him in the place of highest shame between two thieves.[5]
Spurgeon says that Jesus, like David, was shamed instead of honored. His cross was horrifically shame-full. The Romans designed crucifixions to shame you while they killed you. And Jesus willingly embraced this shame, this dishonor, so that he could take our shame and make us whole and right and honored.
Only when we look at the cross of Jesus with eyes of faith will our hearts be healed and brought back together. As Spurgeon says, “In this way His glory was turned into shame by the sons of men, but it shall nevertheless still gladden the eyes of saints and angels, world without end.”
As we look at Jesus hanging on the cross, our proud and fearful and impatient and hurting hearts see that we are loved by the only One who truly matters and so don’t need anyone or anything else to make us whole. We see him hanging there for us and our hearts are melted by the mercy that we know we don’t deserve.
Our “eyes are gladdened” and we find relief in our distresses, energy and desire to repent of sin, a settled confidence that he’s all we need, and that in him we have more than this world offers. As we look at Jesus on the cross, our divided hearts are healed and made whole. Do you see him?
[1]James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 55.
[2]James M. Hamilton, Jr., Psalms: Volume 1, Psalms 1-72, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), 118.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 57.
[5]Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: A New Edition of the Classic Devotional Based on The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, revised and updated by Alistair Begg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2025), April 7.