Community Group Discussion Guide

Psalm 7 – July 14, 2019

I. Starter Questions:

• Have you experienced a betrayal by a friend, or felt like you were being unfairly criticized?

• When was there a time when you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders and were in desperate needs of God’s rescue?

II. Discussion of Scripture:

A. Psalm 7 (ESV)In You Do I Take RefugeA Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite.

1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

3 O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands,4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause,5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah

6 Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.

8 The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

and may you establish the righteous—you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow;13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.

17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

Brief Explanation: This lament psalm by David speaks of a previously unknown time of suffering handed to him by a man from the tribe of Benjamin, possibly even by Saul himself. David is unfairly persecuted and betrayed, and he cries out to the Lord for protection. He in humility and confidence asks God to search his heart for any sin that might be in him that could have caused this suffering. Then, assured of his deliverance, David rests in God’s judgement against his enemies, giving thanks to Him and praising His name.

David’s suffering in this psalm anticipates Jesus’ sufferings, who was also unfairly persecuted and betrayed — and who was completely without “wrong on [His] hands” (v. 4), without “evil” (v. 4), and full of “righteousness” and “integrity” (v. 8).

For Discussion:

1. The tone of the psalm is set in verses 1 and 2. What kind of situation is David facing?

2. It is a humble, yet confident, move for David to ask God to curse him if he’s done wrong (vv. 3-5). How is it humble? How is it confident? Compare this with Job’s statements in chapter 31 of the book of Job, starting at verse 5.

3. How can we apply such humility and confidence to our own sufferings?

4. How can David walk in such confidence of his own lack of wrong and evil (v. 4), and of his own righteousness and integrity (v. 8) and “upright[ness]” (v. 10)? In other words, is David speaking of works-based righteousness?

5. How does David show his trust in God in verses 10-11? Is David speaking of his own accomplished “upright[ness]”?

6. What does verses 12-16 describe? What does verses 15-16 imply about God’s judgement?

7. How should this view of God’s judgment and opposition of the wicked propel our efforts to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world?

8. David closes out the psalm with thanksgiving and praise (v. 17). Why does the Lord deserve our thanks and praise?

9. Zooming back out, how does this psalm apply to you right now?

III. Responding in Prayer:

1. Ask if there might be one or more people that are needing rescue and deliverance from suffering “lest like a lion they tear [their] soul apart” (v. 2). Pray for them as a group that they walk in humility and confidence in their righteousness that’s been given to them in Christ, that He will rescue them, giving thanks to Him for his righteous judgement and praising His name! Pray also the gospel over them for their own strengthening and confidence if they are already in Christ, and salvation if they are not!

2. Pray for our church that we would be led by the Spirit to fully embrace the mission of our church: Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. As Christians, we were chosen for purpose — the purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, and we glorify God by loving Him, loving people, and making disciples! We will be blessed in the doing of the mission set before us. Some of the ways we fulfill our mission is by loving God through our praise, loving people by bringing the good news of salvation, and making disciples which multiplies a means of grace to many needing deliverance from eternal suffering.