Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

Psalm 60

Main Idea: God restores his presence with his people when they repent of their sin and trust him alone.

On Wednesday, February 21, 2018, the gospel enterprise on earth recorded a loss while the kingdom in heaven celebrated a win. Dr. Billy Graham, the world-renowned and beloved evangelist, went home to be with the one he faithfully proclaimed for the better part of half a century. In the days following his death, a barrage of pictures and news articles about Graham’s ministry flooded the news networks and social media. We revisited God’s grace in his life and celebrated the countless victories of people who missed hell and made heaven because of the gospel he had preached across the globe. Billy Graham’s death certainly was bittersweet for many of us—bitter because we’re going to miss him terribly and sweet because we’re thankful that God graced our lives with one of his choice servants.

Dr. Graham’s passing, however, also reminded me of something else, something not so pleasant to recall. As I reviewed the pictorial account of his life—the packed stadiums, the flooded altar areas, the conversations with world leaders, the consultations at the White House—two thoughts kept coming to my mind. One, I couldn’t help but think about how our secular culture, our evangelical culture, my own denominational culture, and so many of our local church cultures don’t have the same feel as they did when Dr. Graham was preaching. There doesn’t seem to be as much evangelistic fervor among believers, spiritual interest among unbelievers, and religious awareness in our society. Two, I found myself praying, “Lord, do it again.” We seem to be at a different place spiritually than we were in those days. And we desperately need God to do something for us that not only can we not make happen, but we haven’t seen him make happen in quite some time.

That’s the desperate straits in which we find ourselves today. We’ve backslidden, and we can’t fix it. There seems to be a gap in our fellowship with God, and we don’t have the ability to close it. We need God to deliver us from our moral—and evangelistic—drought, and he’s our only chance of deliverance. If he doesn’t come through for us, we’re toast!

King David knew what it meant for God’s people to be separated from the sweet fellowship they once had with him. This psalm was birthed out of one such situation. The superscription describes an occasion for which we simply don’t have all the information. The context seems to be when David was fighting the Aramaeans in the north while the Edomites were attacking in the south (2 Sam 8). The king deployed Joab to suppress the latter uprising. When David got news of Joab’s victory, he may have penned this psalm to reflect both his worry over the southern conflict and his confidence in God’s promises to conquer the opposing peoples (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 333). The song is a lament, possibly prompted by David’s armies suffering a significant setback in the battles, the details of which the 2 Samuel 8 narrative doesn’t divulge.

What is certain is that there seems to be a gap between God and his people. The Israelites were in a situation where their power and position weren’t assurances they would survive. They didn’t have any good options, but the psalmist knew their victories and their defeats both came from God. The only hope David and his people had was for God to make good on his word, and that hope gave him the confidence to cry out to him for help. So, how do we pray when there’s a “fellowship gap” between us and God? Consider four applications regarding how we pray for God to close that gap on our behalf.

Repent of Your Sin

Psalm 60:1-3

Anyone who’s ever participated in any kind of addiction intervention knows that one of the most important things for a person to do is admit there’s a problem. The same is true if we expect God to intervene in our crisis situations. Sometimes we don’t pray like the psalmist because we don’t see our desperate situation, and sometimes we don’t see our desperate situation because we’re not willing to admit that something is awry. Sometimes things are cockeyed between us and God because of our sin, and we need to admit to God that we have a problem.

David knew something wasn’t right between God and his people. The language in the first three verses implies Israel has experienced some significant military defeat at God’s hand (cf. vv. 9-12; also Ps 44). The catastrophic setback is described first as having earthquake-like effects, shaking and ripping the people apart (v. 2). Second, the psalmist says God has made his people “suffer hardship” (v. 3), describing the weightiness of what they’re enduring. Finally, he likens the consequences of the disaster to the effects of intoxication (v. 3). Ross says, “God made them drink it to the bitter dregs, so to speak. The image represents the staggering blow they received in their defeat, a blow that sent them reeling” (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 338).

Despite the graphic terms with which David describes the defeat on the battlefield, he knows the real problem is a spiritual one. His deepest concern in this text is for how the current circumstances reflect the nation’s broken relationship with God. The psalmist comes right out of the gate stating what he understands to be the problem (v. 1). This weighty charge is couched in three descriptive verbs that suggest God’s anger toward his people has caused him to both spurn and break them. While we’re not told the reason for God’s anger or the details of his discipline, the psalmist clearly underscores that it put a serious strain on their relationship.

After admitting to God that there is a rift between him and his people, David begins to cry out to God for help. He makes two specific requests for God to fix this cataclysmic problem: “Restore us!” (v. 1) and “Heal its fissures” (v. 2). The petition at the end of verse 1 could also be rendered, “Turn back to us.” Although the psalmist offers no reason for God’s anger, he obviously assumes it’s the reason for his trouble. So he’s asking God to turn back his anger. The request in verse 2 for God to “heal” the broken nation is a request for God to restore their relationship with him so they once again can rest in his defense.

The two appeals together are a plea for God to reestablish Israel’s favored position by abandoning his anger and repairing the rupture in their relationship. The adversity had seriously strained their relationship with him. So the king asks God on behalf of his people not to spurn them but, instead, to come to their aid. While the pronoun you isn’t emphatic in verses 1-3, its repeated and rapid-fire presence traces the nation’s chaos right back to God. So David sees their predicament as being under his ultimate control. Consequently, he goes to the source with his appeal. God produced their dilemma, so only God can provide their deliverance.

These first few verses paint a beautiful picture of the gospel! Taking the initiative of admitting there’s a problem between us and God paves the way for deliverance, just as it did for David. God is sovereign, and certainly it is only by his grace that we become aware of our predicament. However, like the psalmist, we can respond to that grace by confessing we have a problem we can’t fix. Being willing to admit our need is part of the DNA of what the Bible calls repentance. God in his grace calls us to himself and demands that we confess there’s a problem between him and us. He calls us to change our mind about our sin and about the person of Jesus Christ. Peter proclaimed, “Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out” (Acts 3:19; cf. Matt 3:2,8-9; 4:17; Acts 2:38; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). The only way we are saved is to change our mind about out sin and turn to the only one who can do anything about our situation, and that’s Jesus Christ.

The same thing is true when we find ourselves in desperate situations in our Christian lives that result from our sin. If we want to tap into God’s resources through prayer, we can’t just start praying and expect him to act. The Bible indicates that when we pray with unconfessed sin in our lives, our prayers just bounce off the ceiling (see Ps 66:18; Isa 59:1-2; Matt 5:23-24; 1 Pet 3:7). We must always begin by admitting there’s a problem between us and God and that we can’t fix that problem. That admission forges a path for us to turn from our sin, come into his presence, and make our appeal for his strong help. Certainly, sometimes we find ourselves desperate for God’s help when our predicament isn’t the result of our sin. However, knowing the nature of our sinful flesh should always compel us to start with that as a possibility. And even if we are right with God, we still need to lay before him our awareness that we’ve got a problem we can’t fix.

Run to Your Deliverer

Psalm 60:4-5

Sometimes efforts at affection can backfire on us. Our daughter is the youngest of our three kids, and she’s our only girl. She’s now grown, married, and has children of her own. But when she was just a little girl, I remember frequently saying to her, “You’ll always be daddy’s little girl!” I wanted her to know how much I loved her and that she and I would always have a special daddy-daughter relationship. When she became a teenager, however, my expression of affection came back to haunt me more than a few times. When she wanted something and was trying to convince me to approve, it wasn’t beyond her to look at me with puppy eyes and say something like, “Oh, Daddy, please! Remember, you said I’d always be your little girl.” She was playing the identity card in order to get what she wanted!

While God never desires that we make petty attempts to manipulate him, he delights in us using our identity card when we need him to act. While Bible translators differ on the exact meaning of verse 4, it’s clear that the psalmist acknowledges that God has “given a signal flag” (v. 4) for his people. A signal flag was a type of standard or banner often used in war to be a rallying point for the troops. It was visible during battle and, therefore, served as an encouragement and motivation for the soldiers. But some interpreters see the rallying banner in verse 4 not as a help but as a way of exposing Israel to the barrage of arrows coming from the enemy archers. That makes verse 4 merely a continuation of the catalog of God’s negative actions toward his people found in verses 1-3.

The apparent positive tone beginning in verse 5, however, seems to indicate that David’s words should be understood as a positive offer of protection from the archers. The declaration provides a theological foundation for his prayer. God is giving his people a banner that represents their identity as belonging to him. It represents their calling and mission in life.

They were called to be the people of God with a distinct inheritance and mission; and even in the midst of apparent chaos, they were to demonstrate the truth of their calling by crying out to God for deliverance and renewal. (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 338–39)

The Israelites were keenly aware of the identity of their signal flag. After their victory over the Amelekites in Exodus 17, Moses said Israel’s banner was the Lord himself. He called him Yahweh nissi—“The Lord Is My Banner” (Exod 17:15; cf. Isa 11:10-12). God is the one who prevails on their behalf, and that’s who the psalmist is petitioning. He appeals to God’s delight in his chosen ones (v. 5). The Israelites are the apple of God’s eye, and David knew he wouldn’t abandon them. The “right hand” is a symbol of strength. David appeals to God for his people’s deliverance from their enemies based on their treasured position as God’s children, and, consequently, he prays that God will deliver them with great force!

David’s approach here is worthy of our imitation. What father will not come to the aid of his beloved children when they’re in trouble, especially when they’re crying out for help? What father will not exercise all of his strength, ability, might, and resources to rescue his children when they’re hurting? Disciples of Jesus Christ are God’s precious children (Rom 8:14-17), and he takes great delight in us. He promised that Christ would be our banner who would deliver us: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins” (Rom 11:26-27). So he wants us to approach him with our needs based on that identity. Somehow the prayers of God’s little ones—made against the backdrop of our identity in Christ as his children—strangely work as the tender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence! God acts when his children rally around their identity as his children and cry out to him for deliverance.

Rely on God’s Promises

Psalm 60:6-8

After establishing God as our banner, David appeals to the promises God made to his people long ago. He quotes something God had said “in his sanctuary” (v. 6)—in his separate and unique position as a warrior, as the leader, as the King, as the holy God (cf. Ps 69:35). This oracle was a confirmation of God’s promises from the time Israel had inhabited the land. God is taking his people back to the conquest and distribution of the land, and he’s assuring them of his faithfulness to love and preserve them.

This oracle begins on a note of triumph, portraying God as the victor who has won the day (v. 6). We really don’t know if this prophetic word was given at the time of the current crisis or if God spoke it at some other time in Israel’s history. Oftentimes God’s people rehearsed oracles like this as reminders of his faithfulness. What matters is that it was timeless. Whenever God’s people were threatened or attacked, or whenever their possession of the promised land was in jeopardy, oracles like this would remind them of his victory and his promise to “divide” the land and “apportion” it to his people (v. 6).

In the next three verses God employs the literary device known as a synecdoche. A synecdoche is when we use some parts of something to represent the whole of it. For example, in our treasured song “God Bless America” we find the words, “From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam” representing the entire United States. Here in Psalm 60, God uses representative geographic locations in and around the promised land to represent the whole of it. While Shechem and Succoth (v. 6) specifically refer to territories on either side of the Jordan, they are meant to signify the allotment of land as an inheritance for the whole nation. In verse 7 God declares, “Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine.” Similarly, the former territory was east of the Jordan, and the latter straddled the river. Then he says, “Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter” (v. 7). The scepter represented kingship. Since Judah was the center of the kingdom, it often was seen as the head, and Ephraim to the north as its defense against invasion. So Ephraim was to the state what a helmet was to a soldier.

After painting this picture of Israel proper, God references surrounding states in verse 8. These countries gave Israel a lot of trouble during the conquest as well as throughout the early monarchy. They weren’t ever fully part of Israel but were subjugated and controlled by her. Moab is pictured as a servant with a pot for washing. A warrior pitches his shoe to his slave Edom to be cleaned. And while the exact intention of the statement about Philistia is difficult to nail down, it obviously asserts God’s victory over that land.

So in just a few sentences the early history and distinctive territories of Israel are rehearsed. The God of Israel owns the land (and surrounding territories) and can allocate it to whomever he pleases. And as he promised, he chose to divide it up among the Israelites. So this oracle is a reminder of his sovereignty over the land and his faithfulness to his promise. And under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David reminds his people that they can rely on God’s word and rest in its certainty, even in the midst of their turbulent times.

What an encouragement for us when it comes to prayer! As God’s children, we have his Word written down and preserved in the Bible so we won’t miss it or forget it. This Bible is filled with God’s promises to us about his sovereignty over all creation, his delight in us, his salvation for us, and his will for our lives. Those promises all find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Paul said,

For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God. Now it is God who strengthens us together with you in Christ, and who has anointed us. He has also put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment. (2 Cor 1:20-22)

God has made an irrevocable promise to us as his beloved children; he’ll never go back on it. And he wants us to cry out to him, recount to him what he has said, and rely on him to make good on it. John wrote, “This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). The most potent praying we do is when we pray according to God’s will. And the Bible is made up of sixty-six books of God’s will! Consequently, we should pray with an open Bible, appealing to God based on what he’s revealed and pledged to us. We should cry out to him on the basis of his character, his attributes, his faithfulness, his commands, his promises, his mission, and his glory. We can rely on God to come through on his word.

Remember Your Need

Psalm 60:9-12

One of the times have I felt most inadequate in ministry leadership is when I left the faculty at New Orleans Seminary to be the pastor of Riverside Church in Denver, Colorado. Riverside was a large church. I had never pastored a large church before, and I had spent the last eleven years of my ministry teaching in a seminary. When I was interviewing with the search committee, that tension came up. One of the team members told me they knew they were going to have to address that issue with the congregation. So he asked me, “What makes you think you can do this?” I knew what he was asking. My degrees weren’t enough. My experience didn’t match up. Nothing on paper said this would work. So as honestly as I knew how, I responded, “If God doesn’t show up, I’m in trouble.”

The last stanza in this poem is about that reality. It’s simply a rehearsal of the psalmist’s need for God. He asks who will help in verse 9. He admits utter failure at God’s hand in verse 10. He recognizes the vanity of man’s strength in verse 11. And he declares God as the reason for success in verse 12. Every verse is some acknowledgment of complete reliance on someone other than himself. David is repeating the truth that if God doesn’t show up, he’s in trouble. Remembering that need kept him in a healthy place—a place of utter desperation for and dependence on God.

The Hebrew parallelism in verse 9 identifies Edom as a “fortified city” that Israel couldn’t penetrate. Apparently, the king had been planning an attack on Edom when God interrupted and caused the chaos among his own people (see vv. 1-3). In light of the setback, he’s asking the rhetorical questions, “Who will bring me . . . ? Who will lead me?” (v. 9). And the emphatically implied answer is “Nobody—if God doesn’t do it!” And the recognition of need for him continues in verse 10. The psalmist has a problem: only God can give them victory over Edom, but he’s turned his back on them. Victory would be possible only if God showed up.

If David’s armies were to expect victory, God would have to answer their prayer for help and healing. So he prays, and again the parallelism reveals why this is a lost cause and hopeless endeavor unless God provides some help (v. 11). David was keenly aware that “a king is not saved by a large army; a warrior will not be rescued by great strength. The horse is a false hope for safety; it provides no escape by its great power” (Ps 33:16-17). It would be ridiculous to trust in men and materiel. If he did, even the armies of the people of God would be toast!

Weighing the vanity of trusting in his own ability against the promise of God’s sovereign power is a no-brainer. The psalmist is going with God on this one. Trusting in God’s ability instead of his own assures him that God will provide victory in his military assault on Edom (v. 12). Because they were repentant of their own disobedience (vv. 1-3), and because they had God’s word on the matter (vv. 4-8), David and his armies could be confident God’s wrath was temporary and their victory was certain. And God won’t merely act on their behalf; he will act “valiantly” (v. 12), or mightily. The Israelites will defeat their foe with vigor!

The psalmist finishes with a clear statement of his point: “He will trample our foes” (v. 12). The first word of this clause keeps our attention on the one who’s the only guaranteed source of help. The construction is as if David is saying, “God himself will win this thing!” While the Israelite armies will physically engage in the battle, God is the warrior trampling the enemy under his foot. The metaphor is an anthropomorphism that speaks loudly of the utter defeat of the enemy. David’s prayer was for victory as they mounted the attack, and he was confident God would come through because his people were relying on what he had promised.

I haven’t given a lot of good answers during my days, but I think the one I gave that search team was one of them. Apparently it was acceptable because they called me to be their pastor. And for the almost eight years of my tenure at Riverside Church, I lived in that tension of dependence. It was glorious! Utter dependence on our God is a safe place. That’s a healthy place for each of us. And the most potent praying any of us will ever do is when we pray from a position of total reliance on God, a position where we acknowledge, “If he doesn’t show up, I’m in trouble!” When we pray from the position of remembering our need for God, he always seems to show up.

Conclusion

What a great picture of the gospel! Remember your need—you’re a sinner and have fallen short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23). Cry out to God in repentance and faith—he’s made that possible through his Son, Jesus (Acts 2:38). Embrace and celebrate your position as a child of God—he’s adopted you and made you a joint heir with Jesus (Rom 8:15-17). Live your life in complete confidence in God’s promises—he’s packaged them in Jesus and written them down in the Bible (John 1:1,14; 2 Cor 1:19-20; 2 Tim 3:16-17). And finally, remember every day that all you are, all you have, and all you do is completely dependent on Christ and Christ alone (2 Cor 12:9-10). That’s what Jesus has made possible through his life, death, and resurrection.

Spurgeon said, “Faith is never happier than when it can fall back upon the promise of God” (Spurgeon, Treasury of David, vol. 3, 30). Ultimately, it is an act of faith to throw ourselves at the mercy of the promises God makes in his Word. God speaks; we respond yes. And at no time is that more refreshing than when we find ourselves at the end of our rope, having exhausted our own resources, and having brought bedlam into our lives through our sin. Psalm 60 gives us the hope that God can and will close that gap. It points us to the gospel and even tells us what to do. We must be willing to admit that we’ve messed up and God isn’t pleased. We must cry out to him to turn back to us and fix our mess by his grace. We need to grab hold of our identity as his children and run to him as our banner. Through the mystery of prayer, we need to remind him of that truth and of the promises to which he’s obligated himself in his Word. And then we need to rest in the confidence that he’ll be faithful to come through for our good and his glory. That’s a happy place for our faith.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What biblical pictures come to mind when you think of “sweet fellowship” with God?
2. How do we pray when there’s a “fellowship gap” between us and God?
3. What is the correlation between seeing our need for God’s intervention in our lives and a willingness to seek him to intervene?
4. How does our ongoing need in life and God’s ever-present deliverance throughout our lives serve to paint a glorious picture of the gospel? Why should a recognition of our need also provide us hope in driving us to prayer?
5. Why is it important for us to know the multifaceted character of God as we approach him in prayer? How does knowing who he really is guide us in genuine conversation with him?
6. In what ways does our identity as children of God impact our assurance before God in prayer?
7. What is the connection between God’s faithfulness in the past and our expectations of the present? In other words, how should God’s activity in our lives in the past inform how we view our needs in the present and future?
8. How can a thorough understanding of remembrance in Scripture provide confidence for us to ask specific prayers with an expectancy of God’s response?
9. Why is utter dependence on God actually a safe and healthy place to live?
10. In what area(s) of your life might you need to remember your need for God, repent of sin, run to him, and rely on his promises?