“Epiphany and Our Greatest Need”
Psalm 27
January 8, 2023
Faith Presbyterian Church – Morning Service
Pastor Nicoletti
The Reading of the Word
As I’ve mentioned, it is the Sunday closest to Epiphany. On Epiphany the Church has historically focused on Jesus’s revelation of himself to others in his earthly ministry: most specifically in his identity being revealed to the gentiles in the coming of the Magi, his identity being revealed within Israel at his baptism, and his identity being revealed to his disciples in his first miracle at the wedding at Cana.
This morning I want to reflect on the theme of Epiphany – the theme of God’s revelation of himself to his people. But rather than focus on one of those specific instances in the earthly ministry of Jesus, I want to focus on our deep need for God to reveal – to show – himself to us, and how he has provided that in the gospel.
And to help us reflect on how those two elements play out in our lives, we will consider Psalm 27.
With that in mind, please do listen carefully, for this is God’s word for us this morning:
The Lord [Yahweh] is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
Yahweh is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers assail me
to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
it is they who stumble and fall.
3 Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
yet I will be confident.
4 One thing have I asked of Yahweh,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of Yahweh
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh
and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.
6 And now my head shall be lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to Yahweh.
7 Hear, O Yahweh, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
8 You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Yahweh, do I seek.”
9 Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but Yahweh will take me in.
11 Teach me your way, O Yahweh,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
12 Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.
13 I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of Yahweh
in the land of the living!
14 Wait for Yahweh;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for Yahweh!
This is the word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)
“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” [1 Peter 1:24-25]
Let’s pray …
Prayer of Illumination
Lord, we do believe that your word
is firmly fixed forever, with you, in the heavens.
Your faithfulness endures to all generations,
you have made this world and it stands as you will it to.
Lord, as your people, help us to never forget your precepts,
Because by them you have given us life.
Lord, we are yours, save us,
for we have sought your ways.
Grant us life now through this your word.
In Jesus’s name. Amen
[Based on Psalm 119:89, 90, 93, 94]
Introduction
As we consider Psalm 27 this morning, the theme that I want to focus on, which I think we find in this psalm, and which gets at the heart of Epiphany is that: Our greatest need is for God to be with us and show himself to us, which is what he has provided for us in the gospel.
And I want to consider that in two parts: first our need, and then God’s provision.
Our Need
So first is our need – our need for God both to be with us and to show himself to us. And in this Psalm, we see that we need this both when life is difficult, and also when life is good.
When Life Is Difficult
First, we need God to be with us and to show himself to us when life is difficult.
And this theme is fairly obvious in Psalm 27.
In verse two David tells us that he is thinking of what he needs when evildoers assail him, when his adversaries and foes seek to “eat up” his flesh.
In verse three he tells us that he is reflecting on his need when an army encamp against him, and war arises against him. It is such situations of conflict that David has in mind as the psalm begins.
Now, for David, in his lifetime, these kinds of threats were often concrete and literal: enemies actively sought his life, opposing armies literally pursued him. Most of us here don’t face those specific circumstances ourselves. But we do face our own trials – our own spiritual, or emotional, or relational battles in life, in which we can similarly feel attacked and under siege. And I would argue that David means for us to bring those kinds of battles to this psalm as well. Remember, the psalms are not a private prayer journal of other people that we get to just read and reflect on – the psalms are the public hymnal of Israel. David wasn’t just describing his own experience, but he was writing a hymn to help others better understand their own experiences in life, and to shape their responses to those experiences [Collins, 165]. And he knew that many Israelites who would sing or pray these words would not face physical warfare or treachery themselves – but they would face spiritual, emotional, and relational warfare or treachery. And this psalm was meant to apply to them as well, just as it is meant to apply to us.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his sermon on this psalm urges us to face, rather than minimize these kinds of trials in our lives. “Nothing is so wrong, and indeed dishonest,” he writes, “as to pretend that the moment you become a Christian all your problems are left behind and you will never have any difficulties from then on. That is just not true. The Christian is not promised an easy time in this world; indeed, the reverse is much nearer the truth. We are told in many places in the New Testament that as Christians we can expect unusual trials precisely because we are followers of the Lord.”
“Because we are Christians,” he writes, “the devil and all his forces will be particularly concerned to try us and to test us; to bring us down, if not into sin, at any rate into a condition of defeat and of unhappiness, filled with a sense of insecurity and a spirit of fear.” [Lloyd-Jones, 154-155]
Our spiritual battles, Lloyd-Jones reminds us, are real. There are conscious spiritual beings of darkness who seek our destruction. Just as there is spiritual good, so there is spiritual evil. Just as there is earthly warfare, so there is spiritual warfare. And in fact, our spiritual enemies are far more dangerous than our opponents could be in any physical war.
In our spiritual battles, Lloyd-Jones points out, our enemies seek to achieve one of two goals. Their first goal is to tempt us to sin. But if that does not work, their second goal will be to try to put us in a state, as he puts it, of “defeat and of unhappiness, filled with a sense of insecurity and a spirit of fear.”
That distinction is important. It’s worth taking note that Lloyd-Jones distinguishes discouragement and distress we may feel … from sin. Remember that Jesus himself spoke words that sound a lot like discouragement and distress, but he never sinned. Both temptation to sin and distress towards discouragement are part of spiritual warfare. And both are things we are to seek deliverance from. We are to seek deliverance from sin, and also from despair and discouragement and fear.
Because that is what David does here. And that is what the Bible calls us to do. We should not be surprised when we face trials and temptations – for as the Apostle Peter reminds us, these difficulties are normal for God’s people. [2 Peter 4:12] Neither should we try to minimize them, rather than facing them as they are, as Lloyd-Jones points out [Lloyd-Jones, 155] Instead, we are to seek God’s help in the midst of such difficulties, as David calls us to do here.
But an important step in doing that is that we need to resist our culture’s temptation as well, as it calls us to look to ourselves, rather than to God.
Our culture often says that when we face difficulties, what we most need is self-confidence, and self-esteem, and belief in ourselves. Our culture’s communication to us, when we face difficulties, is often some form of that now common phrase: “You got this.”
But Psalm 27’s emphatic message is: “You don’t got this.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it like this – he writes: “If you feel that you are competent to stand up to life and that you can deal with all these things that are set against you, you are […] an ignoramus. You do not really understand the problems, and you do not understand yourself. [David’s confidence, in this psalm] is not based upon himself, and he makes it quite plain as to what the source of his confidence is: It is ‘the Lord.’” [Lloyd-Jones, 160]
David looks to the Lord. More specifically, David looks to the Lord’s deliverance, the Lord’s presence, and the Lord’s self-revelation.
First, in the psalm, David prays for the Lord’s deliverance. In verse twelve he asks for deliverance, and throughout the psalm he expresses his confidence in the Lord’s deliverance.
David expresses what he wants to be delivered from. But he also makes it clear what he wants to be delivered to. And we see that in verse four. David says: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”
David makes it clear that he doesn’t just want to be delivered from his trials to some general state of freedom and independence. Rather, what he wants to be delivered to is the special presence of the Lord. That’s the second thing David looks to: the presence of God.
But then, third, David makes it clear that the presence of the Lord is not just a general atmosphere he’d like to be in. Rather – it involves a conscious focus on the Lord himself … and not just a conscious focus on David’s part, but an intentional self-disclosure from God. God must reveal himself. God must show himself to David. That is the height of David’s desire, and even his greatest need. The reason he wants to be in the presence of the Lord, he says at the end of verse four is “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” It is, as he says in verse eight, to gaze upon the face of the Lord. This is the point of it all. This is David’s greatest need. [Lloyd-Jones, 167, 169; Collins, 167]
And it’s our greatest need in times of trouble as well … though we can sometimes forget that. We should, of course, pray for God to deliver us from earthly trials, and it is not wrong to pray for earthly success. But earthly success is not our greatest need – it’s not our highest good. Our highest good is to be in the presence of God, and for him to reveal himself to us – for us to gaze upon his face.
That’s true when it comes to our circumstances. It’s also true when it comes to our sin. And sometimes we need a reminder of that.
Forgiveness of sins – our justification before God, through Christ – is an amazing gift. But it’s not the end, or the final goal, of the gospel. Justification or forgiveness is actually, in many ways, a means to a greater end. And that greater end is not just that we are spared the punishment we deserve for our sin, but that, in Christ, we are able to be with God, and have him show himself to us. That is the purpose of our salvation.
And so, we see with David here, that in times of trouble, when life is difficult, our greatest need is not only to be delivered from our troubles, but to be delivered to the presence of God, where we might gaze upon his face.
That is our greatest need when life is difficult.
When Life Is Good
But what about when life is good? What about when things are going well? When we have all the things we want … then do we still really need the face of God? Or is what David is talking about more of just a consolation for those who are struggling in this life?
In 1996 Harper’s Magazine sent the author David Foster Wallace on a seven-night luxury Caribbean cruise. His assignment was to observe what it was like, reflect on the experience, and write about it for them.
The title of the essay he wrote was: “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”
In the essay, Wallace at first tries to explain just how luxurious the experience of the cruise really was. The brochure of the cruise, he writes, “does not lie or exaggerate […] in the luxury department.” In fact, he says, as a writer he struggled to communicate what he calls “the atmosphere of […] nearly insanity-producing pampering on board the” cruise ship. [Wallace, 290]
“It is everywhere on the [ship that] you look,” he explains, “evidence of a steely determination to indulge the passenger in ways that go far beyond any halfway-sane passenger’s own expectations.” He tries to give a few examples.
He explains the luxury of the two upper deck sun areas, where the deck chairs are, he writes, “narcolepticly comfortable.” When you arrive, an endless supply of fluffy towels is made available to you, and when you get up, “a special squad of full-time Towel Guys” materializes to whisk your used towels away. [293]
“Down in the Five-Star […] Restaurant,” he writes, “the waiter will not only bring you […] lobster – as well as seconds and even thirds on lobster – with methamphetaminic speed, but he’ll also incline over you with gleaming claw-cracker and surgical fork and dismantle the lobster for you.” [293-294]
“At the Windsurf Café, […] where there’s always an informal buffet lunch, there’s never [a long line], there are about 73 varieties of entrée alone, and incredibly good coffee; and if you’re carrying a bunch of notebooks or even just have too many things on your tray, a waiter will materialize as you peel away from the buffet and will carry your tray – [in other words, he says,] even though it’s a cafeteria there’s all these waiters standing around […] scanning for any little way to be of service.” [294]
“And let’s don’t forget Room service, which,” he writes, “is in addition to the eleven scheduled daily opportunities for public eating, and [is] available 24/7, and it’s free: all you do is hit [the extension] on the bedside phone, and ten to fifteen minutes later a guy […] appears with this […] tray” of amazing sandwich platters to choose from. [295-296]
But it goes well beyond food. The ship itself is beautiful, clean, and made of what looks like the highest quality materials. [294] The cleanliness and care is amazing, and every time you leave your room for more than half an hour, he notes: “when [you] get back it’s totally cleaned and dusted down again and the towels replaced and the bathroom agleam.” [297] Wallace goes on and on. He finds the level of care mind-blowing.
Surely, in such a pampered, luxurious setting, people cannot help but be happy. People cannot help but be content. People couldn’t possibly feel any kind of additional need.
And yet … Wallace finds that that’s not the case. Despite all the luxury, despite all the pampering, despite it all, “There is,” he writes, “something about [the] […] Luxury Cruise that’s unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things,” he writes, “it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its cause and simple in its effect: on board the [cruise ship] – especially at night, when all the ship’s structured fun and reassurances and gaiety-noise ceased – I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously,” Wallace explains. [Wallace, 261]
Wallace felt despair on his incredible cruise. And he didn’t believe that the feeling was unique to him. But how could that be?
Wallace spends some time reflecting on that question, and as he does, he comes to believe that the most significant problem lies not in the cruise itself, but in him … and in us.
The problem, he explains, is our tendency to believe – even to expect – that these sorts of things and experiences can give us true peace and happiness. “I want to believe,” he writes, “that this Ultimate Fantasy Vacation will be enough pampering, that this time the luxury and pleasure will be so completely and faultlessly administered that [I] will be sated.” – I will be satisfied. But we never are.
We may feel satisfied briefly. For a few days Wallace’s mind was blown by the luxury. But within a couple of days his perspective had already begun to change. He began to feel dissatisfied again. He began to accumulate grievances even.
By Wednesday, he writes, I’ve become “acutely conscious of the fact that the AC vent in my cabin hisses (loudly). […] I notice that when Table 64’s […] busboy uses his crumb-scoop to clear crumbs off the tablecloth between courses he never seems to get quite all the crumbs.” When housekeeping “makes my bed, not all the hospital corners are at exactly the same angle.” The artwork on the wall is not to his liking, and when he tries to take it down, he’s frustrated to find that it’s bolted to the wall. The conditioning shampoo the cruise ship provides, he writes, “turns out to be harder to rinse all the way out than most other shampoos, and the ice sculptures at the Midnight Buffet sometimes look hurriedly carved, […] and it’s impossible to get really numbingly cold water out of [the room’s] bathroom tap.” And his list of frustrations goes on. [316-317]
Now, Wallace recognizes the absurdity of these grievances … but he can’t seem to stop them from rising in his heart.
And we’ve all experienced something of that, haven’t we? Maybe not on a luxury cruise … but in some area of life. We’ve all had those moments where we get something we’ve been wanting: whether it’s success in some area of life, or the love of a significant other, or an enjoyable experience, or an object we’ve longed for, or something else … and when we finally get that thing we have so anticipated – that thing we believed, on some level, would give us peace and contentment … we may experience a moment of satisfaction … but that moment is always fleeting. It passes by quickly.
Maybe you’ve experienced that in some major area of life. Maybe you’ve experienced that in a smaller way just this past Christmas season.
Even when life is good … even when things are going well – when everything is arranged in a way that we thought would be perfect – even then, we are ultimately unsatisfied.
Why is this?
Well, there are several reasons. But chief among them is the fact that the things of this world cannot ultimately satisfy us. We were made for more than the things of this world. We were made for God – to live in his presence, and to gaze upon his beauty. And while the world is filled with good things, those good things can never really satisfy us because they are finite, and they are limited, and we were made – we were designed – to behold the face of and to receive the embrace of an infinite God.
And while this isn’t the main focus of Psalm 27, I think this point is also present there.
Take a look at verse ten.
As commentator Derek Kidner points out, David’s point in that verse is probably hypothetical, which is why other translations put it as “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” [NIV] The point, Kidner explains, is not that both of David’s parents have actually disowned him – they probably still love him. But David is recognizing here that even beyond their breaking-point of love for him, God’s love for him would continue. [Kidner, 139]
In other words, even something as good as the love of a father or mother has limits – because a mother and father are finite [Lloyd-Jones, 166], as are all the things of this world. When we try to find satisfaction for our hearts in the things of this world, we soon realize, as David Foster Wallace experienced, that we were made for more than the things of this world. Our deepest needs are not material comforts, or worldly security, or personal luxury, or earthly power and control … but our deepest need is to be in the presence of God and to gaze upon him.
And that is what he’s promised us in the gospel.
God’s Provision for Us in the Gospel
Which brings us to our second main point this morning: God’s provision for us in the gospel.
In the gospel, God has promised deliverance from sin, and death, and Satan, for all who place their trust in him through Christ. But as we said earlier, that deliverance is not the end of the story – it’s rather a means toward the greater goal of God’s people entering his special presence, and beholding his beauty: gazing upon his face.
That is what God has provided for is people in the gospel, in the past, the present, and the future.
God’s Past Provision
First, God has provided his special presence and self-revelation to his people in the past.
That, remember, is the theme of Epiphany – that’s why we are considering this topic this morning. We see that theme in the traditional events remembered on Epiphany. But, of course, God’s self-revelation goes well beyond those events. Again and again, over the course of thousands of years, God has revealed himself to our world in mighty deeds and in acts of special revelation. The anchor of our hope for knowing God is the fact that in the past, in history, he has already made himself known. And we have a recording of that in the Scriptures: a recording of God’s works of self-revelation, which he carried out in time and space, in the very world in which we live, as historical realities.
God has shown himself to his people in the past.
God’s Present Provision
But second, God has also promised to show himself to us in the present.
And we see that emphasized throughout Psalm 27. In fact, David spends much of the psalm speaking of God’s special presence and self-revelation here and now, in the present. That’s especially clear in verse thirteen where the language David uses, as Dr. Jack Collins points out, is meant to indicate that David is talking not about a past event or about the next life, but about life in this world. [Collins, 167]
And it’s not just that David hopes to see God’s face, but God himself calls on David to seek his face. We see that in verse eight. It is God who says to David and to us “Seek my face.” This is a calling God gives to his people in the present.
That itself is worth reflecting on. God actively calls us to seek his face in this life. Lloyd-Jones writes: “When we are in trouble, [the Lord] in various ways comes to us and says, ‘Seek My face’ […] When we are utterly bewildered and frustrated, suddenly something says within us, ‘Why not turn to God?’ It is God Himself who is doing this by the Spirit. He prompts us: ‘Seek My face. You see, you’ve forgotten Me.’” [Lloyd-Jones, 164]
David tells us that God calls us to seek him here and now, and that he will show himself to us here and now. So how does this come about – where are we to look?
And this, I think, is even more amazing. Because David doesn’t point us to extraordinary miraculous acts of God’s self-revelation. He also doesn’t point us to some vague and intangible spiritual ascent that we are to pursue. Instead he makes it clear that in this life we are to seek God’s self-revelation and special presence through the ordinary means that God has provided for us.
And David highlights what those provisions were in his own day. He points to the temple or tabernacle of the Lord in verse four, to the sacrifices of Old Testament worship in verse six, to the songs of praise in verse six, to the pursuit of prayer in verse seven, to the Words of God in verse eleven. These are the means of grace. And if we want to deepen our fellowship with God in this life – if we want to deepen our experience of his presence and his self-revelation to us – then we must pursue these means of grace: for it is ordinarily through them that the Lord shows himself to us more deeply in this life.
We, of course, do not have a literal temple or literal sacrifices. But the means of grace are no less concrete and ordinary for us than they were for David. The Lord has provided for us his Word in the Bible, in which he speaks to us. He has provided the gift of prayer, by which we can speak to him. He has provided the sacraments by which we draw close to him in concrete realities. He has provided worship, by which we, as his people, can gather together around Word, sacrament, and prayer. And it is by these means of grace that God ordinarily reveals himself to us in this life.
And so the first question to ask yourself is: are you seeking the Lord through those means in your personal life? If you want God’s special presence in your life – if you want to gaze upon his beauty, if you recognize that that is your greatest need, then have you done the simple work of actually engaging with the means by which he said he would reveal himself to you: through reading his Word and through speaking to him in prayer? That is how God calls you to seek his face in your personal life.
But as important as the means of grace are in our private lives, it is noteworthy that David’s greater focus – in this psalm at least – is not on private worship, but on public worship. [Collins, 166]. And this comes out in a striking way in verse eight.
Look again at verse eight. This is lost in the English translation, but in Hebrew, the calling given in the first line, “Seek my face” is grammatically plural, so that it is spoken to multiple people, while the response, in the third line, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” is given in the singular – it is a personal response. Dr. Jack Collins suggests that between this, and an allusion to verse four here, the setting David is giving us for this dialogue is public worship.
It is in public worship that God says to his people publicly “Seek my face.” And the proper response is for each believer to take that public invitation as a personal invitation and to respond by personally seeking God. [Collins, 167] We tend to divide the public and the private, but as Collins points out, the “intensely personal gazing” described in verse four “occurs in the public setting of public worship.” [Collins, 166]
And so, David is telling us, it is especially in the setting of public worship, as we engage in it from the heart, that the Lord calls us to seek his face, and in which he reveals himself to us.
The question for you then, is: When you hear the call to worship at the start of each service, do you recognize it, as David does in verse eight, as the Lord himself calling you to seek his face? And do you respond accordingly?
Along with that, when God’s Word is spoken in the declaration or pardon, or the instruction from his word, or the invitation to his table, or the benediction in his name – do you hear that as well not as my words, or as abstract words, but as God’s words spoken specifically to you, calling you and helping you to enter his presence, and gaze upon the beauty of his face?
Because that is how Psalm 27 calls us to engage in worship.
God’s special presence and self-revelation are not locked up in the past nor are they reserved only for the future, but even now God calls us to seek his face and he reveals himself to us in the present, through worship and the means of grace.
God’s Future Provision
Even so … even as we experience God’s presence and the light of his face now … we don’t now experience it in its fullness. Not even close. That any Christian can tell you. And the Bible certainly affirms it.
As the Apostle Paul put it: “now we see through a glass, darkly; but then [we shall see] face to face.” [1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV] Now we “know in part” but then we shall know even as we have been fully known.
Now we see through a glass darkly. Just how dark the tint of that glass is can vary. For some Christians or at some times, that glass through which we can see the light of God’s face seems especially dark. For others, or at other times, it may be lighter. But there is always a dimming in this life – our ability to behold the Lord is always so partial and obscured.
Which is why it’s good that God’s promised provision of his presence and his self-revelation is not limited to the past or the present, but that it finds its fullness in the future.
David makes that point emphatically in this psalm. The last exhortation given to us comes in verse fourteen: “Wait for the Lord.” David repeats it twice. [Lloyd-Jones, 171]
For one thing, you don’t wait for what you already have.
But for another, what we wait for, has huge implications for how we experience the waiting. A groom waiting for the last twenty minutes before he will see his bride walk down the aisle has a very different experience of waiting than a man waiting the last twenty minutes before his number is called at the DMV. Both men are waiting. But the second man is waiting for the fulfillment of a mundane task, while the first man – the groom – is waiting for the fulfillment of a great and life-changing joy.
As Christians, we are people who await the fulfillment of a great joy. We believe that one day Christ will return. And when he does, not only will he make all things new – not only will he eliminate all sin and death and brokenness – but even more astounding than that, he himself will dwell with us. And we will behold his face. We will see him clearly. We will know him fully. And in that moment, the deepest longing of our heart will be fulfilled. That is what we wait for.
And knowing that that is what we wait for – believing that that is what we wait for – should change us and shape us now, in the present.
Like David, it should make us less fearful and less discouraged. Because we are not waiting for our final defeat. We are not waiting for oblivion. But we are waiting for the full presence of the Lord. We are waiting for that moment when we will gaze clearly upon the face of Christ. And that future expectation changes everything.
It doesn’t erase the difficulties we face now – not at all. But it should change how our hearts endure those difficulties.
It should make us people who are eager to look back at how God has shown himself to us in the past, as we consider his self-revelation recorded for us in the Scriptures.
It should make us people who eagerly seek a glimpse of God’s face in the present, pursuing the means of grace in the hopes of knowing him more deeply and more fully in this life.
And it should make us a people who wait in great expectation for Christ’s return – his final and ultimate self-revelation, when we will behold his face and rejoice with him forever.
Because seeing our God, in the face of Christ, is what we most need.
And that is what God has promised us in the gospel.
Amen.
—
This sermon draws on material from:
Brock, Cory C. “Revisiting Bavinck and the Beatific Vision.” Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies 6.2 (2021): 367-382. https://jbtsonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/JBTS-6.2-Article-8.pdf
Collins, C. John. “Psalms” in ESV Expository Commentary Vol. V: Psalms – Song of Solomon. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022.
Grace in Common Podcast. “The Vision of God: A Conversation with Michael Allen.” June 20, 2022. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vision-of-god-a-conversation-with-michael-allen/id1609942093?i=1000567121565
Kidner, Derek. Psalms 1-72: Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1973 (2008 Format)
Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Seeking the Face of God: Nine Reflections on the Psalms. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991.
Wallace, David Foster. “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments. New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 1996. [An important disclaimer: While I have drawn from this work in this sermon, David Foster Wallace is not appropriate for everyone. Caution and wisdom must be exercised by Christians in knowing what would be profitable for them to read and what they should personally avoid.]
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