Rest for the Restless Mind
Pastor Zach Pummill • August 15, 2021
Sermon Overview
PSALM 27
How do you approach God in your anxiety? In this psalm we see David struggle with the reality of a restless mind that’s thinking through all the challenges and difficulties of life. Yet we see David come to a place of confidence that’s rooted in how he approaches God.
Sermon Transcript
If you're a guest with us this morning, or you're still new here at RPC, we are really glad to have you, and you find us today as we're starting a new sermon series that we've called "Beside Still Waters." Over the next six weeks, we are going to be looking at the Psalms. And each year we try to spend time in the Psalms because the Psalms have a way of meeting us right where we are in life. The Psalms are not pretentious and complex as though they're only for some sort of spiritual elite, the Psalms have a way of removing that complexity. They offer a simplicity to us that has a way of slowing us down. They anchor us whenever we feel untethered because the Psalms remind you that the desire of your God is to lead you beside still waters. He wants to restore your soul. He wants to bring stability to your heart in the midst of this unstable world. I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty good right about now.
But before we get into the poetry, let's start with a little philosophy this morning, because as we begin this series, I want to address an obstacle in your heart that will keep you from experiencing what the Psalms have to offer to you. There's an obstacle in your heart that keeps you from receiving that invitation and experiencing God. Marq and I were talking just this last week, sitting out back solving one world problem after the other as we're prone to do. And then in the conversation, a Church History professor that we both had in seminary came up and we remembered something that he would often say, he'd often say, "We live in a Kantian world." We live in a Kantian world.
And he's referencing Immanuel Kant who was a philosopher centuries ago during the Enlightenment. And he's referencing how he's had such a dramatic impact on how we think in the Western world, how his philosophical framework for understanding reality has had a massive impact and shaped how we think about the world in ways that we're not even aware of, and in ways we don't even notice it.
And so when he said that we live in a Kantian world, he's saying how we live in a world where the transcendent has been separated from the imminent. Spiritual realities have been disconnected from physical realities. God is a distant, untouchable, off-limits, kind of reality to us. We're cut off from that. He's up there, we're down here. And so in short we live in a Kantian world because we live in a world where God has been slowly removed from how we think about the world, which means that God has been slowly removed from the every-day, imminent realities of life.
Now as Christians we'd say, "Well, we don't believe that." And yet, at the same time, we live as though that is true all the time. Because we too live in this Kantian world, and we have to recognize the ways that we too have been shaped and we too remove God, we too remove God from the equation of life. It's just that when we express it, we express it in more subtle, simple ways. We express it with things like, "Why pray? What good does it even do? I'm just too busy to work on my spiritual life." Or, "Why pray? God doesn't listen to me anyways. My problems are so small compared to other peoples, God doesn't care about what I'm going through."
This is why I want you to address your own heart as we begin this series. I want you to address your own heart and all the ways that you think of God as distant, detached, and indifferent. All the ways where we think that He is unapproachable. He's off limits. Ways where we think that He is indifferent and unconnected to the experiences and the struggles that we have to where, in the end, all you're left with is the imminent reality of your own problems.
This is why we need the Psalms, because the Psalms tell you a different story. The Psalms tell you that none of that is actually true. The Psalms tell you that God actually wants to meet you in all those nitty gritty moments of life, even in your worst moments of life. God wants to meet you in broken relationships. God wants to meet you in abandonment and betrayal. God wants to meet you in heartache and shame. God wants to meet you in your fears. God wants to meet you in your failures. And today's Psalm reminds us that God wants to meet you in your anxiety.
If you look at the superscript at the very beginning of the Psalm that tells us that this is a Psalm of David, he's the one who wrote it. And usually that superscript will tell you if the song was written or inspired about a specific event in David's life. But with this psalm, we don't get that. It just says "Of David", which means we don't really exactly know when or why or the occasion that caused him to sit down and write it. But if we look closely at what he writes in this Psalm, we're actually given clues about what he's actually dealing with. And it's something that we deal with all the time.
Have you ever found yourself lying in bed at night, unable to sleep because your mind won't stop racing? I know, me neither, but I hear this- I hear there's people that do. Now, some of you are like, you just described my last year and a half. You just described my last month, you just described last night. Well, that's what I want you to think about David. I want you to imagine him lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, it's late at night, he can't sleep. He's tossed and turned for hours because his mind will not turn off. So it gets out of bed, he sits down and he writes this psalm. So why won't his mind turn off? What's on his mind?
Well look at what he says throughout the psalm. It says, "When doers assail me... Thought an army and camp against me... Though war rise against me...In the day of trouble though... Thought my father and mother forsake me." That's a lot. There's a lot of things on his mind tonight. He's writing about all sorts of different threats and concerns and cares that he has, but notice he doesn't talk about any of those things as though they're currently happening. He doesn't talk about any of those things as though that's a present reality, because look what he says. He says, "When evil doers, though an army encamp, "though war arise against me in the day of trouble."
So why won't his mind turn off tonight? It's because he's been rehearsing. He's been rehearsing. His mind won't stop because he's rehearsing through all the scenarios that could go wrong. He's running through all the potential threats that weigh heavy on his soul. He's trying to think about all the ways things could go wrong, so he's not caught off guard. Trying to brace himself for what he feels is just around the corner. So in a sense, he's anxious about absolutely nothing because there's no real particular realistic reality going on right now. And yet he's anxious about everything because his mind will just not stop, because all of those things feel so imminent. David is feeling and experiencing the anxiety of a restless mind, the anxiety that's so aware of how many imminent threats and dangers there are and all the ways that things could go wrong and he's overwhelmed.
Now, you and I don't face the same threats and dangers, perhaps, as an ancient king, with armies and enemies seeking our lives. But don't make the mistake of starting to compare yourself with David and what he's going through and what you're going through. Because David is thinking about threats that were very real possibilities for him in his life. And the things that give you anxiety are things that are real possibilities in your life. That's why none of you are going to lose sleep tonight because you're afraid that you're going to get hit by a meteor tomorrow. In your anxiety, it's all of those things that feel so credible. They feel just around the corner.
So even though your circumstances and your situation might be different than David's, your response is still the same. You worry about being trapped in circumstances that you can't escape. Worried about people that seem out to get you. Worried about your closest relationships falling apart and being left alone. Worried about what others are saying about you and your reputation. Worried about death and your well-being. Just simply being worried about that inevitable "Day of Trouble" that seems just around the corner and wondering how bad it's going to be, wondering if you'll be able to handle it. It's just the reality of a restless mind.
And it's in that place where we feel overwhelmed by all the imminent realities of life. And we start to feel that Kantian disconnect between us and God. God's untouchable and off limits and I'm left in this imminent problem all on my own.
But David doesn't believe that. In his anxiety, he comes to a completely different conclusion, because as he sits down to write with all these things all on his mind, all of these dangers that seem to lie in wait, he comes to a different conclusion. What does he say? He says, "When evildoers assail me, it's they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me my heart shall not fear. The war rise against me yet will I be confident. In the day of trouble you place me high upon a rock."
Despite all of those worries and all of those cares and concerns, David comes to a place of confidence and finds rest for his restless mind. Do you desire that? Do you desire that kind of confidence? Do you desire that rest for your restless mind? Well, how do you approach God in your anxiety? Do you go to God and your anxiety?
David comes to that place of confidence and rest because of how he approaches God, he experiences the transcendent reality in the midst of these imminent challenges and threats and anxieties that he faces. And part of why we don't experience that same thing and that confidence and that rest, is because of how we approach God in our anxiety and all of the ways that we think of Him. So this psalm pushes back against all of those Kantian disconnects that come to life within us, whenever our anxiety hits and we think of God as something other than He actually is.
So the first thing this psalm pushes back against is how we approach God like He's a dinner guest. If you have ever been to my house for dinner, or just for an evening, you probably noticed that our house is completely spotless. Don't go into the bedroom or open the closet doors, but you will notice a spotless house where you could do surgery on our kitchen floor because it's so clean. Why? That's because we spent the entire day preparing for your arrival. We want you to think that we have everything under control and that we live in the serene bliss of a magazine. Maybe that's you, perhaps you do the same thing. You invite guests over and it's time to get busy. It is time to clean and time to get everything in order, get everything straight. So you're running your family and your kids like a black ops team, just getting everything in order, getting through that mail pile that you finally done, clearing off the countertops, mop, clean, fold those blankets, drape everything just the way it's supposed to go, fluff the pillows, as you prepare for the arrival of your most honored guests.
Oftentimes we treat God in the same exact way. He's a guest that we want to have come close, but in order for that to happen, we feel like first we have to get everything in order. We have to get everything straightened away and cleaned up so that when He does arrive and when He does show up, He can just kind of come in and sit down and say, "Wow, I love what you've done with the place."
We think that in order to commune and fellowship with God, that can only happen if we get everything under control. "Well I'll experience God as soon as my life isn't such a mess. I'll experience God as soon as I deal with my addictions. I'll experience God, as soon as I get my problems under control. I'll finally experience the transcendent realities of God as soon as I get all of these messy, imminent realities of my current life in check and cleaned up. Why? Because God doesn't wanna see all of this. God doesn't factor in to all of this."
But He is not your guest. He is your God. And David invites you to approach Him differently in your anxiety.
Look at what he says in verse 1, he says, "The Lord is my light." The Lord is my light. The Lord is my light. What's he saying? Well, even in his pre-scientific understanding of the world, David knew that light was how he was able to see everything around him and his world. You didn't go out at night. You didn't travel. Why? Because nighttime is darkness. They didn't have street lights and flashlights and flashlights on their phones, light everywhere. Their worlds shut down because it was a world of darkness. Darkness was dangerous. Darkness is when you couldn't see, darkness made it difficult to navigate the world. But light removed the darkness. Light allowed you to see everything around you light reveals the pitfalls. It reveals what's in front of you. It gives you perspective of things near and far. Why? Because light is how you see.
And so when he says, "Lord, you are my light", he's saying you are how I understand the world around me. It's you that gives me understanding. It's you that helps me see. It's you that helps me know the way I should go. It's you that reveals the pitfalls and the problems. It's you that guides me and gives me perspective. Without you I'm left in darkness.
So when we approach God like He's a guest and we feel like we have to get our lives in order first, then we have a problem because that mindset is built on the assumption that we can see and understand what needs to be cleaned up in the first place. It assumes that we can see all of the angles. It assumes that we rightly understand the problems and assumes that we know how to fix them. But the truth is, whenever real problems happen, real problems produce anxiety. And there's nothing like anxiety that makes us lose perspective. There's nothing like anxiety that keeps us from being able to see.
A little while ago, my daughter, Ava, who's two, was playing with her big brother upstairs doing God knows what. But the way the five-year-old version of the story went was that she jumped off of something, and when she jumped off of something that he had nothing to do with, she face-planted directly into the bed frame. And so the corner of the bed frame went right into her forehead and she had the goose egg to end all goose eggs. I mean, I should have posted that on CCB. It was something to behold, it was shareable, magnificent. A second little head just coming right out of her forehead. It's a bump, it happens, right? Not a big deal. Little time goes on and it kind of heals up. I think about a month later, I start to notice that there's still kind of a dent in her forehead. It's like a little dimple that's still there. So I started looking at it thinking it's going to go away, but then it doesn't. So things kinda start to get ratcheted up a little bit, and I'm like, "I wonder what's going on with that?" I'm like, "Sweetie, I wonder if she has scar tissue under there?" Like if it's your son, he's got a scar on his face, it's kinda cool, all right? But if it's your daughter, you don't want her to have a scar on her face if you can help it.
So I started to think like, we need to do something about this scar so we can fix her. So we start to put some scar cream on it, but it doesn't go away, it's not fixing it. So now we're like, what's going on here? Now things are ratcheted up, she's going to have a facial scar the rest her life that we can't do anything about. So then we're like, let's go to the source of all authority. So we get on Google and then according to Google, they get ratcheted up even more, because evidently we're either dealing with a skull fracture or a brain tumor, right? And so now we have no idea what's going on. And then we go to the doctor when she has her checkup, and we said, "Hey, what's going on with that?" And she just said what was happening. She said it was fine. She said it was going to be okay. We know how easily our minds can race, and we get carried away and we lose perspective. Now what happens when we actually face real problems?
The truth is, we are bad self-diagnosers. We don't understand the problems that we face. We don't have the perspective that we think we do. It's why that restless mind makes you lose sleep because that anxiety communicates to you that at your core, you feel incapacitated to handle it. And so if we think that it's up to us to organize our lives and get everything straightened up and only then will we experience God, then what hope do we really have? It's like trying to clean up your home in pitch blackness. David is saying apart from him, you are stumbling around in the darkness of your own ability and the darkness of your own understanding and the darkness of your own efforts.
He says, "Instead, come to your God in your anxiety, who is your light." What's that look like? It looks like verse 11, where he says, "Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path." It's you who shows me the way. It's you who helps me truly understand this world around me. It's you who helps me understand the problems that I face, the pitfalls before me. It's you that gives me perspective. In your anxiety, do you go to the God who is your light? Or are you just trying to prepare for a guest?
The second way this psalm pushes back and challenges how we approach God is because we don't want a God, we want a genie. We turn prayer into the Christian version of having three wishes.
You've already noticed that David is fully aware of the threats he's facing. He's fully aware of all of the potential dangers that are all around them. He doesn't pretend like they're not there. No, he's honest about his struggles. He's honest about his fears, but in that, what does he want? What does he ask for? In fact, what's the only thing that he asks for? It's verse 4: "One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple."
That might be the most audacious, bold request in the entire Old Testament. Why? Because the Lord and His presence only dwelled in one room. At the time that David wrote this, the presence of the Lord could only be found in one room. And it was only visible one day a year. And there was only one man allowed in that one room to see it. And David is not that man.
So what is he making in this bold request then? He believes in a God that wants to be seen. And his one desire is to constantly live in the presence of his God and see the beauty of His face in the midst of his anxieties. He wants to constantly live with a sense of God's presence with him and to behold the steadying beauty of His face. That's his one desire in the midst of all his anxieties is God Himself. Because notice what David doesn't pray. Notice that he doesn't pray, "God, please don't let any of these bad things happen to me. Please don't let any of these things come to pass. Please make sure that nothing bad ever happens to me."
In his anxiety, he doesn't come to God with three wishes to pray all the bad things away. Why? Because David is a realist. He knows this life is full of trouble and difficulty and wind and waves. He knows this set of circumstances might change and there's going to be another one just queued up right behind him. He wants more. He wants something concrete and certain, he says, "That's why you are my one desire." I want to see your face. I want to behold your beauty, because you are the stabilizing presence in my life. Whatever comes to pass, I want to know that you are with me. It's your presence that's my confidence. It's your presence that will bring the rest to my restless mind that I so desire."
In your anxiety, what do you ask for? What's your greatest desire? I think we don't experience God in our anxieties for the simple reason that we don't ask for it, we're not actually looking for Him. Instead, in that anxiety, we fixate on all of those problems and on all of those concerns. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that God doesn't want to hear those things. No, God does want to hear those things. That's why David constantly brings all of his cares and concerns to God in the Psalms.
But if we want to experience God the way that David is talking about, then we have to be honest with ourselves. Because isn't it often the case in our anxiety that as we fixate on all of those cares and concerns, if we do pray, then our prayer just becomes trying to get God to fixate on those same problems with us? God fix this. God fix that. God makes sure this doesn't happen. God makes sure this turns out over here the way I want it to turn out. And instead of waiting on God to meet us, we are simply just waiting for our circumstances to change.
And the thing is, your circumstances might change, your circumstances might actually change, but here's the thing: you won't. Which means you'll just be as anxious as you are now, as you will be when the next day of trouble arises. But here's the thing that David wants you to see. In the midst of all of your anxieties, he wants you to see the face of God. It's there you find confidence because it's there when you seek His face, that's when you change. When you seek His face, you change regardless of whether or not your circumstances change. Because when you seek His face, you find a confidence and a strength and a solidness on the inside, regardless of what's happening on the outside.
It's in this psalm that David just puts a simple question to us in our anxiety. Do you know the power of seeking His face?
And the New Testament shows us what this Psalm looks like in real time. It gives us a picture of how we change when God is our desire and we seek His face in the storms of life. At the beginning of the Gospels, it's a story you know well, the disciples are in a boat with Jesus when a storm overtakes them and they start to take on water. And they start to sink and they're terrified and they fear for their life. But Jesus is sleeping in the boat with them as the storm rages all around them. Jesus isn't losing any sleep, that is until they wake Him up and they yell, "Jesus, we are perishing! We are going to die!" So Jesus gets up and he commands the wind and the waves to be still. And now the disciples marvel at His power.
But then if you fast forward a little bit, there's another storm that happens. Why? Well, storms just have a way of keep on coming. There's another storm, but this time it's a little bit different. Because the disciples are in the boat and once again, they are afraid that they're going to die. They're taking on water, they're sinking and they fear for their lives. But Jesus isn't with them this time in the way that he was before. He's with them differently. And as they look out through the wind and the rain, they see Jesus walking on water towards them. Do you see that in your mind's eye? Jesus walking on water, above all the wind and all the waves?
And when Peter sees Jesus, he gets out of the boat and he walks towards Jesus. He gets out of the boat and he walks on water towards Jesus in the middle of the very storm that made them fear for their lives. Once he sees Jesus, he gets out of the boat and he walks on those waves like they're concrete.
Do you see the radical change that's happened? Because we see the same kind of storm. But this time we see a different kind of Peter.
Because when Jesus calmed that first storm, Peter learned something very important that day. He learned he needed to look for Jesus in the storm. He learned to look for Jesus in the storm.
And when he found Him and set his gaze upon Him, when he beheld his face, he experienced a confidence that doesn't make any sense in this world. Why? Because he got out of the boat. He got out of the boat. Do you see Peter walking on water in your mind's eye? That doesn't make any sense. He gets out of the boat. That's crazy to me. Why? Because I don't like large bodies of water. Why? Because there's creatures of the Fall in large bodies of water. And when the storm happens, I'm not getting out of that boat, whatsoever. But Peter gets out of the boat. Peter gets out of the boat because when he sees his transcendent Lord, he experiences a transcendent confidence that doesn't make sense in this world. He experienced a confidence and a new kind of strength and power that bore him up on the heights of the waves and he walked on water.
It's when Peter learned to find Jesus during the storm, that he became something new in the storm - and he was changed.
So what can you do with all this? Do you want to know that confidence in your anxiety and all the storms of life that you're facing or feel like you will? Where do you start?
One thing I've come to realize is that for us as Christians, one of the hardest things for us to accept is that Jesus is in the boat with us. We have a hard time accepting that is true.
In so many ways, we feel the constant tug of anxiety and the weight of our restless minds in all the storms of life that just keep coming. And it's in that space that we feel all of those Kantian disconnects and distance with God, where he feels on untraversable, untouchable, unknowable - so we can't help but focus on all the wind and all the waves that swirl around us. And we feel afraid, desperate, overwhelmed, alone, incapacitated, restless, and sleepless.
So what are you to do in all those moments? Just start where Peter started, start by recognizing that Jesus is in the boat with you and believing it and allowing that to change how you enter into the storm. So start to pray simple things this week. Every time that moment of anxiety starts to well up within you. Every time you feel that anxiety and that worry and that care, and that concern, just offer this simple prayer to Jesus. "I am anxious, but you are my light. Guide me in the way that I should go. I want to feel your presence. I just want to see your face. I'm scared. I don't understand. I don't know where to even get started, but I just want to see you. I want to stop looking at all these wind and these waves that just constantly draw my gaze, help me see you."
And in all of those moments of anxiety, let that desire constantly be on your lips. This God who is your light, this God who desires to reveal his face to you, seek Him in all those moments with just those simple prayers. Find Him because He's in the boat with you and see if you don't have a different kind of week, because that's the kind of prayer that will bring rest to the restless mind.
That's the kind of prayer that will make you walk on water.
And who doesn't wanna walk on water?
