God’s Word for You
Psalm 27:7-9 Seek me
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, October 12, 2022
7 Hear, O LORD, I cry out loud:
be merciful to me and answer me.
8 To you my heart says: “Seek my face,”
and your face, O LORD, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger,
You have been my help.
Do not cast me aside, do not forsake me,
O God who saves me!
These verses show the faith of the believer in distress. Coupled with the previous verses, they show David’s desire to be in the house of the Lord in order to pray and learn, and for his knowledge of God’s word to deepen.
First, the Lord hears our prayers and he answers us. Second, he invites us to learn more about him. Third, we grow in our faith and we keep trusting in God day by day for our lifetime.
1, The Lord hears our prayers. Of course, we do not need to be in a church building or even gathered with other believers in order to pray. Jesus often went off by himself to pray (Matthew 14:23, 26:36; Luke 6:12). Jesus also urges us to pray alone in our rooms behind closed doors (Matthew 6:6). But when we pray in worship or in the house of God, we combine our prayers with music, learning, and even with our offerings.
2, The Lord invites us to learn more about him. Jesus says: “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me” (John 6:45). Isaiah says: “All your sons will be taught by the Lord” (Isaiah 65:13), and how will this happen if we do not begin to feed them the word of God when they are young, so that they will seek out his word on their own when they are older and sitting in a pew without us? To study the word of God is a joy that always delights us. To share our own insights with our friends is good, but to sit at the feet of a wise teacher is even better; someone who points us to Christ, who shows the simple meaning of the text, and who can connect the dots from one doctrine to the next. Holy Father, bless us with good teachers!
3, The Christian grows in his faith, asks for forgiveness, and keeps trusting in God day by day. We see David demonstrating this by his repeated prayers: Do not hide from me. Don’t turn me away. Don’t cast me aside or forsake me. You are God who saves me!
David is confessing his sin when he says, “Do not turn your servant away in anger.” Although the Hebrew phrase here is unusual, the meaning is clear. David admits he needs God’s forgiveness, and so he asks the Lord not to be angry with him. The forgiveness of our sin is among the greatest benefits and chief reasons for our worship. We desire God’s grace, which is to say, his undeserved mercy over our sins. The correct administration of the means of grace is one of the marks of the true church (along with the preaching of the gospel). It is in worship that we receive this forgiveness publicly, by the pastor who is called by the church. The Lord saves us (verse 9), and he does so through his word, preached by his servants, combined with earthly elements in the sacraments, to offer and to give us his forgiveness, his unconditional love, and the gift of everlasting life.
Verse 8 is a challenge to the reader and to the translator. I have presented it here as it appears in Hebrew:
To you (all) my heart says: “Seek my face,”
and your face, O LORD, I will seek.
We wonder, is the Lord talking to David (and us) when he says: “Seek my face (all of you),” or is someone else talking to David, or is David talking to the Lord? If David is talking to the Lord when he says, “Seek (you guys) the face of me,” this seems like the most obscure proof passage for the Holy Trinity in the Bible. It would seem easier to make a change in the text, and it almost seems like we need to, to understand it. But if David meant, “Seek his / your (the Lord’s) face,” why didn’t he say that? It’s a mystery, but like all the Bible’s mysteries, the fault is not in the text, but in the sinful reader. If I cannot understand this part of God’s word, then I am at fault. So if the only possible solution to me seems to be: “You (plural), O Lord, seek me, says my heart,” then David is asking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to seek after him in order to save him from his sins. This is certainly what each Christian asks of God.
Seek me, O Lord, so that I can be found. As David says in the conclusion to another Psalm: “Surely goodness and love will follow me, chase after me, all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The Lord goes after one sheep at a time, to rescue us (Matthew 18:12), and it is only when the Lord seeks me that I can be found, be saved, and live forever with him.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.