How Do I Live In Confidence? Psalm 138 Sermon
Learning to Pray in the School of the Psalms
Scripture: Psalm 138:1-8
Series: Learning to Pray in the School of the Psalms
Preacher: Russell Smith
Date: August 23, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Theme verses: Psalm 138:1-8
Explore the sermon slide show
How Do I Live In Confidence?
The Psalms are the hymns of ancient Israel, but they are also its prayers. Jesus had the Psalms on his lips; Paul had the Psalms on his lips; the early church learned from them how to cry out to God. Through the Psalms we bring the full range of our inner life to the Lord. Some begin in anguish—‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’—but Psalm 138 begins in another place. It asks a question that meets us squarely in ordinary life: How do I live in confidence?
We live in a world where things can become upset and unsettled with startling ease. On August 11, I was driving to West Chester to visit a congregation member in a nursing home. As I came off I-75, there were blue skies to one side and dark, rolling thunderclouds to the other. By the time I entered the facility, an announcement came over the speakers: residents needed to move into the hallways because of a tornado watch. I spent the next hour in the hallway with the person I was visiting, having our visit there while the storm passed. However, on the way home I had to keep rerouting because trees were down all over the community. Trees fell on cars; one came down across I-71 and blocked traffic for hours. Across the region, 274,000 people lost power, and basements flooded. In the space of that hour, things across our region dramatically changed.
But uncertainty also finds us in more personal and quotidian ways. Local Madeira businesses are wondering whether the seemingly endless road work downtown is choking their access. A sudden health crisis can alter the course of a life in a minute. Parents sending children to a new school wonder: Will they make friends? Will they fit in? Will they thrive? Life continually throws challenges at us. Psalm 138 teaches us how David prays in the face of them, and how that prayer can teach us to live in confidence.
Assert Confidence
David begins: ‘I will praise you, LORD, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name.’ Before he acknowledges the difficulty that is present throughout the psalm, he makes a determination: I will praise you. The opening posture is humility and submission before God, not self-sufficiency. David lives in confidence by beginning with praise.
Living by faith means that the Holy Spirit empowers us to choose. Circumstances may constrain the options in front of us, but we still have a choice about how we frame things in our minds and what mindset we bring into the moment. We can choose hope, gratitude, and praise. We may not feel like it. It may feel like straining against a heavy weight. The cynical voice within may whisper that it is foolish. Yet David models that choice: I will praise you with all my heart. At other times the choice may be to cry our pain to God; the larger choice is to turn toward the Lord rather than become wrapped up in ourselves.
‘Before the gods’ shows that this is no neutral or facile choice. Scholars offer two principal readings. David may mean the actual deities of the pagan nations around Israel—the gods of Egypt, Assyria, Philistia, and the surrounding world. Or he may mean kings, pharaohs, emperors, and other powers, many of whom claimed divine descent. Either way, David is praising the Lord while confronted by competing claimants to authority and control. He is not glibly praising God; he is praising God in the face of great challenge.
Remember God’s Past Faithfulness
The psalm continues: ‘For your unfailing love and your faithfulness, for you have so exalted your solemn decree that it surpasses your fame. When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me.’ David looks back to God’s continual goodness. He remembers that when he called, God answered him. The reading notes connect this strengthening with God’s call on our lives: God does not merely comfort us; God emboldens us for the work to which we are called.
This is why regular gratitude can be so helpful. When we practice gratitude, we store up in our minds the things God has done for us. When I am at my best, I sit down at the end of the day and write three or four things for which I am thankful. Writing them down fixes them more deeply in the mind. They become mental anchors, or ballast, so that in a time of trial and trouble they are there. We can remember God’s goodness, kindness, provision, and unfailing love when we need strength for confidence.
Where have you experienced God’s faithfulness in the past? Where have you seen God’s goodness? David can say, ‘When I called, you answered me,’ because he has remembered what God has done. The practice of gratitude prepares the imagination for the days when we feel forgotten or unsettled.
Pray for the Powerful
David then prays, ‘May all the kings of the earth praise you, LORD, when they hear what you have decreed. May they sing of the ways of the LORD, for the glory of the LORD is great.’ This is a blanket statement. David is a king praying that the kings of the earth would praise the Lord. Some are allies, like Hiram of Tyre. Some are rivals and adversaries, including the kings of Philistia. Some are supportive; some are hostile. Pray for them all.
Jesus gives us the same challenge in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.’ David prays for all the kings; Jesus calls us to pray for enemies.
Is there a public figure—a politician, celebrity, billionaire, actor, musician, or creator—who looms large in your mind? Perhaps their name appears in the news and you begin grousing. They are living rent-free in your head and affecting your quality of life. Try committing them to the Lord in prayer. We can entrust the powerful and mighty to God. As we do, they lose their power over our imagination. That may release bandwidth in our minds for more hopeful living and for the faithful work God has placed right in front of us.
Remember the Forgotten
David moves quickly from the powerful to the forgotten: ‘Though the LORD is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar.’ The great, mighty, and influential capture our attention, but God has his eyes on the poor, the marginalized, the neglected, and the frail. God’s kindness toward the humble stands in contrast to our fixation on those who command attention.
God directs us to be his eyes, hands, and feet. This is why Madeira-Silverwood serves with St. Francis Seraph Ministries, Habitat for Humanity, Matthew 25:Ministries, and the Appalachia Service Project, making homes warmer, safer, and drier. It is why we keep trying to offer ourselves to people on a daily basis. Serve someone who can do absolutely nothing for you. Remember someone on the margins. You want to live with confidence? Give yourself away a little bit. It is extraordinary how that can strengthen and empower us.
View Life with Romantic Realism
David closes with the tension of faith: ‘Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes; with your right hand you save me. The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.’ There is realism here: trouble, foes, danger, and a need for vindication. Yet those things do not have the final word. The psalm is a blending of lament and resolve to engage where we are called. It holds confidence and ongoing prayer together.
This is close to Psalm 23’s valley of the shadow of death. In a fallen world, putting our feet on the floor each morning means walking into a world of trouble: storm fronts, health crises, anxiety, powers we cannot control, and burdens great and small. But David says, ‘You preserve my life.’ He trusts that God is at work, even as he prays, ‘Do not abandon the works of your hands.’
Way back in 2007 Marvin Olasky wrote an article in World Magazine. He titled the piece ‘romantic realism.’ And in it he said: “The basic idea is that Christianity is the only religion that is both gruesomely accurate in its depiction of abundant sin but also hopeful in its showing that humans are not alone—for the bridegroom, Christ, does not give up even when repeatedly spurned.” That idea of romantic realism has stuck with me all this time. Christianity is realistic in it’s acknowledgement of the deleterious and destructive nature of sin, but Christianity is romantic because it clings to the hope that human beings are not alone: Christ entered the world’s trouble. He suffered shame, indignity, and opposition. He also had friends, feasted, celebrated, and shared the goodness of life. He knows the suffering, trouble, and challenge that threaten to upend us, and he rose victoriously over them. The final word is resurrection and life everlasting.
Romantic realism is neither jaded cynicism that says life is awful and then we die, nor is it Pollyannaish idealism. It tells the truth: life is full of trouble. It also tells the deeper truth: there is more in heaven and earth than trouble. God is active, hope is real, and we can live in the confidence of Psalm 138’s unresolved but trusting prayer.
Invitation to Reflection
Take a few quiet moments with the Lord. What has God been saying to you through the sermon, through worship, or through the life you are carrying today? Be still. Listen for one small, faithful step of response. Bring the unresolved fear, foe, or burden to him, and begin again with praise.
Questions to Consider
How would your outlook be different if you chose to assert confidence in God at the start of your prayers?
Where has God shown his unfailing love for you in the past?
What unresolved fear, foe, or burden is God inviting you to bring to him?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
Comments