The Great Pivot: From Vanity to Sovereignty Text: Psalm 39:7-11
Introduction: The Question That Thrases Smoke
We live in a world that is obsessed with distraction. Our entire culture is a massive, noisy, blinking machine designed to keep you from thinking about two things: the shortness of your life and the reality of your God. King David, in this psalm, has been wrestling with the first of these truths. He has looked at his life, measured in handbreadths, and seen it for what it is apart from God: a puff of smoke, a vain show, a walking shadow. He sees men disquieting themselves for nothing, heaping up riches they cannot take with them. The whole affair, from a horizontal perspective, is pure vanity.
This is a truth that can either lead a man to despair or to God. The unbeliever sees this transience and concludes that since life is meaningless, he might as well eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow he dies. His response is either hedonism or nihilism, which are really just two different ways of screaming into the void. But the believer, when confronted with the fleeting nature of his life, is driven to ask a much better question. If my life is a vapor, if I am but smoke, then what is the point of anything? And more pointedly, why would the sovereign God of the universe, who is eternal and self-sufficient, bother Himself with disciplining a creature as flimsy as I am?
This is the great pivot of the psalm. David turns from the horizontal vanity of man to the vertical sovereignty of God. He moves from the problem of his own frailty to the solution of God's purpose. And in doing so, he teaches us how to process our own afflictions. Our sufferings are not random. Our trials are not meaningless cosmic accidents. They are appointments. They are sent from the hand of a Father who is chastening us for our iniquity, yes, but for a glorious purpose. He thrashes the smoke so that the smoke might know it is not substantial, and in that knowledge, turn to the only One who is.
This passage is a clinic on how to think rightly under the heavy hand of God. It is a lesson in moving from the "why is this happening?" of human complaint to the "You have done it" of faithful submission. It is where the rubber of our theology meets the road of our pain.
The Text
And now, Lord, what do I hope in? My expectation is in You.
Deliver me from all my transgressions; Make me not the reproach of the a wicked fool.
I have become mute, I do not open my mouth, Because it is You who have done it.
Remove Your plague from me; Because of the opposition of Your hand I am wasting away.
With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; Surely every man is vanity. Selah.
(Psalm 39:7-11 LSB)
The Only Place for Hope (v. 7)
We begin with the turning point of the entire psalm:
"And now, Lord, what do I hope in? My expectation is in You." (Psalm 39:7)
After surveying the utter vanity of human existence in the first six verses, David makes a hard turn. He has looked at the world, at its frantic and pointless activity, and he has seen it as a dead end. So he stops, and he looks up. The question "what do I hope in?" is the most important question a man can ask. It is the question that separates the wise man from the fool. The fool places his hope in his portfolio, his health, his reputation, his 401k, all the things that David has just identified as a "vain show." He is building his house on sand that is actively washing out to sea.
David, having been brought to the end of himself, anchors his trust in the only place it can possibly hold. "My expectation is in You." This is not a sentimental platitude. This is hard-nosed, theological realism. If God is not the ultimate reality, then nothing is. If God is not sovereign, then chaos is. If God is not good, then life is a horror story. David is making a conscious, deliberate choice to place all his eggs in God's basket. He is confessing that outside of God, there is no meaning, no purpose, and no hope. This is the foundational act of faith. It is a declaration of dependence. All other ground is sinking sand.
A Sinner's Prayer (v. 8)
Once hope is rightly placed, the first order of business is to deal with sin.
"Deliver me from all my transgressions; Make me not the reproach of the a wicked fool." (Psalm 39:8 LSB)
Notice the connection. As soon as David affirms his hope in God, he immediately prays about his sin. He understands that the affliction he is experiencing is not disconnected from his own transgressions. He doesn't blame his circumstances or his enemies first. He looks in the mirror. This is the mark of a man who is right with God. He knows that his biggest problem is not his suffering, but his sin. Therefore, his first request is for deliverance, not from the trial, but from the transgression that made the trial necessary.
The second half of the verse is crucial. He asks God not to make him the "reproach of the wicked fool." The fool sees a righteous man suffering and concludes that God is either not powerful or not good. He mocks the believer's faith. "Where is your God now?" David is not primarily concerned with his own reputation, but with God's. He knows that when a believer is under divine discipline, the ungodly world is watching, ready to distort the story. They will use the believer's suffering as an excuse to blaspheme God. David's prayer is that God's discipline would be effective and restorative, so that the fool has no occasion to mock the ways of God.
Sovereign Silence (v. 9)
Here we find the bedrock of Christian submission to hardship.
"I have become mute, I do not open my mouth, Because it is You who have done it." (Psalm 39:9 LSB)
This is one of the most profound statements of faith in all the psalms. Why is David silent? Why doesn't he complain, murmur, or accuse God of being unfair? Because he knows the source of his affliction. "It is You who have done it." This is not fatalism. This is faith. David understands the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty. His suffering is not a random event. It is a divine appointment. God is the one who did it.
This truth either crushes you or comforts you. If you believe God is sovereign but not good, this is terrifying. But if you know, as David did, that God is a loving Father, then His sovereignty is the softest pillow on which you can lay your head. It means your pain has a purpose. It means your trial is not meaningless. A good God has sent it for a good reason. This is why we are commanded to give thanks in all things, not just for the good things. Because all things come from His hand. Recognizing this shuts the mouth of complaint. You may argue with God, as Job did, but you may not accuse Him. You may plead with Him, but you may not murmur against Him. The knowledge that He has done it transforms our suffering from a chaotic tragedy into a purposeful, albeit painful, providence.
The Cry for Relief (v. 10-11)
Submission to God's sovereignty does not mean we cannot ask for the trial to end.
"Remove Your plague from me; Because of the opposition of Your hand I am wasting away. With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; Surely every man is vanity. Selah." (Psalm 39:10-11 LSB)
David, having established the source of his trial, now pleads for relief. "Remove Your plague from me." He is wasting away under the heavy hand of God. This is not a contradiction of the previous verse. It is perfectly legitimate for a child who is being disciplined to say, "Father, I understand why you are doing this, and I submit to it. Please, may it be over soon?" Jesus Himself prayed in Gethsemane, "let this cup pass from Me," before He said, "nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done." True submission is not a stoic denial of pain; it is an honest cry for help directed to the one who is inflicting it, trusting in His mercy.
David then explains the process of divine chastening. "With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity." God's discipline is corrective. It is for our sin. He continues with a striking image: "You consume as a moth what is precious to him." A moth works silently, slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it utterly destroys the finest garment. This is what God's chastening does to our pride, our self-reliance, our worldly treasures, everything that we consider precious apart from Him. He allows it to be eaten away, to be consumed, so that we are left with nothing but Him. This is a severe mercy.
And this brings him full circle, back to the theme of the psalm's beginning. "Surely every man is vanity. Selah." The word "Selah" is an instruction to pause and think about this. Meditate on it. Let it sink in. God's discipline is designed to teach us this very lesson. He brings us low to remind us that we are but dust, a vapor, a puff of smoke. He makes us feel our frailty so that we will stop trusting in it and place our expectation entirely in Him. The goal of the chastening is to produce the hope of verse 7.
The Gospel in the Discipline
We cannot read this psalm without seeing its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. David was disciplined for his own transgressions. But there was one Man who was utterly without transgression, and yet the Father's hand was heavier on Him than on any other.
On the cross, Jesus became mute. Like a lamb before its shearers is silent, He did not open His mouth. Why? "Because it is You who have done it." He knew that the cross was not an accident. It was the Father's will. "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10). The Father's plague was upon Him. The opposition of God's hand made Him waste away. God consumed what was most precious, the life of His only Son, as a moth consumes a garment.
But here is the glorious difference. God chastened David for David's iniquity. God crushed Christ for our iniquity. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was made the reproach of fools for our sake. He was delivered for our transgressions. Because He endured the ultimate chastening, we who are in Him now receive discipline, not damnation. We receive the corrective hand of a Father, not the crushing fist of a Judge. Our sufferings, then, are appointments from our Father, designed to make us more like the Son, to strip away our vanity, and to fix our hope, our expectation, solely and completely on Him.