Biblical Lament - "Trust" - Psalm 13

They are good at complaining. And we see this oftentimes in the issues in social media and out in the world when problems arise. We are good. They are good at complaining. Politicians will stand up and they will declare their beefs and their gripes with certain things. They will raise up an army of cultural warriors. They will propose policies. They will propose changes to laws to deal with the complaints of the culture. But the problem with that is that they never move on to the last thing that we talk about tonight, which is trust in God. They trust in policy. They trust in principle, but they don't move on to trust in Christ.

And that's where we arrive tonight in Psalm chapter 13. And as we've been talking about for the last several weeks, the scriptures are replete with lament. A third of the Psalms, the book of Lamentations, numerous parts of the major prophets, numerous parts of the minor prophets, Paul himself throughout his epistles, moments of lament in which he rejoices finally in Christ.

And so in the first week you were exhorted to turn to God. Right in your suffering in your pain you turn to God and we know that our bold questions to God are acts of faith and those are better than silence. And then in the second week we talked about complaining to God.

Coming to him humbly. With our doubts, with our fears, with our worries, with our pains, with our suffering, because we know. that if God will move in our situation, things will be different. They will change. And then last week, Daniel exhorted us to ask boldly. And he poignantly said this,

is there a question you've stopped asking God because of your pain?

Because if God moves, everything will change.

And so finally we get here to Psalm 13 and we are led to trust in God in our pain. And so my hope and my prayer for the past several weeks as we've walked through this is that some of you have dipped your toes in the waters of lament. That where it felt uncomfortable, where it felt too personal, too vulnerable, you were willing to go into those waters a little bit. Voice your frustrations, your pains, your trials to your Lord. and wait patiently for his answer. That is my prayer that you've done that for these past several weeks. And it's my prayer that you will continue in that.

So in Psalm 13, we see David. He's rightly turned himself to the Lord. And instead of turning simply inward upon himself, the grand culmination of this is that he has looked to God. And he knows that he doesn't know everything, but he does know that his sovereign God is working in his situation. And that is clear from this. And he knows, as we learn in our suffering, that God reveals himself in our suffering.

And we are meant, brothers and sisters, to move from complaint to confidence. Complaint to confidence. So, we don't leave ourselves in complaint, but we trust our Savior. And that is the appropriate conclusion to lament, to be led to trust And I think about this in the life of Jefferson Park Baptist Church.

If you notice on Sunday mornings, when we pray prayers of confession, we don't leave ourselves in the depths of our sinfulness, do we? But rather we express hope and confidence that the blood of Christ will cover our sinfulness and move us forward, right? So we're not left in the depths, but we're left in the light. And so brothers and sisters, this too is the conclusion of our pain. Your laments will not be forever. It doesn't matter what they are. They will not be forever when you are in Christ. And that should give us great hope. And we learned that two weeks ago, actually, as Daniel from Norway talked to us from the book of Revelation. we are left in great hope of a God on a throne who is sovereign over all of our pain and suffering.

How long?

So Psalm 13, 1 verse 2, David writes,

how long, O Lord, Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

This is the how long Psalm. How long? How long will I be left in utter exhaustion? How long, oh Lord, before you answer the prayers of my heart?

And David gives us four complaints in here to God and his distress. And these are questions that are clearly of a man who is suffering. And we don't know exactly the immediate context, but we know that David was a man who was often on the run from his enemies. How often are you on the run from your enemies? I think this man can identify with that more than anybody. A life of suffering. There's a raw emotion within these verses here. And we can see that he is wondering when this suffering will end.

And also in verse two, notice he says,

how long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day long?

Do you ever do that? Take counsel in your own soul? You ever lay in bed late at night, just rehearsing your sufferings over and over and over again?

Sometimes these things arise out of nowhere, pains and frustrations that you didn't know were even there until a moment of silence. You're taking counsel in your soul and you know it's not adequate, right? Everything you tell yourself in those moments don't feel right or good. Your worries, your anxieties.

Turn our morning into prayers

That's what David's doing here. How long do I have to do that? How long does he have to feel abandoned? David is complaining, but who's he complaining to? He's complaining to God. He's complaining to God. And so we come to verses three and four, and this is where we see the example of David that we should turn our morning into prayers.

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

So David gives us a beautiful example here of where the exhausted Christian they move from mere suffering and then they view it through a lens of faith. He's not left in complaint. He's not left in bitterness. He's not left in hopelessness. He's not moved to act for himself. He's not moved to take matters into his own hands. He makes a request of the Lord.

This is where we get to the culminating yet that Daniel talked about last night. This is where we turn hopefully to a God who we know is able to act on our behalf. But far too often brothers and sisters this is where we stop. We fall short of this step and this is where culture falls short in their limits. We rest in bitterness. We shake at injustice. We settle for loneliness. But we are called brothers and sisters to turn our mornings into prayers and we see that beautiful example here in verses three and four.

Choose to trust God in our trials

And finally as we have moved through turning to God complaining asking boldly we come to verses five and six where we can rejoice in God's good character. Verse five

but. I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

" This doesn't sound like the same person in verses one through four, does it? A man suffering, a man making his complaints to God,

but I have trusted in your steadfast love.

So we see here, friends, that by David's example, we are called to choose to trust God in our trials. We must make that choice in our hearts. It is an act of the will to choose to trust him in our trials. In David's heart, it says, this hurts. He fears his enemies will rejoice over him. See that in verse five, they will rejoice over him. And that is a fear of his. He's in turmoil.

But I have trusted your steadfast love.

Believer, you must deliberately make that choice to trust in his steadfast love. You must make that choice. You must rely upon the character of God. You must have confidence in the character of God, a God who is unchanging, holy, faithful, steady, kind, consistent, loving, good, merciful, gracious.

In your trials, in your pains, you must be reminded of the history of God

but I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

Do you see that there? In one verse, verse four, he fears his enemies will rejoice over him, but in verse five, no, his heart will rejoice in the Lord and his salvation. God will triumph over your suffering. But only he knows how long that will take. Only he knows. But our gaze is shifted. We have a steadfast, long-suffering, bountiful, gracious, and kind Lord.

Psalm 31.

I have been forgotten, but I trust in you.

Psalm 71,

my enemies speak concerning me, but I will hope continually and praise you more and more.

Psalm 86,

a band of ruthless men seeks my life, but you, oh Lord, are a God merciful and gracious.

As Vogrup says in his book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, he says,

trust is believing what you know to be true, even though the facts of suffering might call that belief into question.

I have trusted in your steadfast love.

God has a history of being trustworthy. We see that testimony within his scriptures. He's worthy of putting your trust in him. When times are good, he's worthy of your trust. When times are bad, he's no less worthy of your trust.

Galatians 2.20,

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Paul didn't write those words with an easy life. Paul was imprisoned for his faith. And the life he lives in the flesh, he still lived it by faith, regardless of the trial, regardless of the suffering. And David says,

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

Doesn't mean that choosing to trust doesn't make our suffering not real, it doesn't diminish it, it doesn't deny it, it doesn't ignore it, it doesn't make it easier necessarily. But we know that this journey is part of God's sanctifying work within our lives and we trust that and we know where it all ends. Where does it all end? It all ends in the salvation of his people in Christ. And so we trust the Lord without knowing the full picture.

Think about watching an artist paint a masterpiece and brushstroke by brushstroke. It doesn't make sense. Sometimes it doesn't even look good. It looks messy. It looks dirty. But what is the end oftentimes of a masterful painter's brushstrokes? A beautiful, beautiful picture, right? the final picture of God's brushstrokes in your life will be one of glory. That is what he's painting in your life as you go through life's suffering.

Faith-filled worship in our Creator

And so in our lament, brothers and sisters, we are called to trust. Christ cried out in lament,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

But that moment was followed by history's greatest redemption story, the tomb, right? The empty tomb. Christ was risen and gave us that hope. And so, brothers and sisters, today, the empty tomb, it leads us to be able to proclaim verse six of our psalm today, which is,

I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Lament is meant to lead us all in a way to faith-filled worship in our Creator. The laments of Scripture lead to trust, and you can see that as you read them yourselves, and that's where the lament should lead us as well. In the Psalms, they teach and tune our affections to take delight in those things that are good and to trust God in those things that are bad.

And as I opened up, we have a society that knows all too well about lament. But their laments lead to a wrong trust in man-centered things, policies, principles, blame shifting. But we speak back to that age, brothers and sisters, with promise over policy. We speak to them with covenants over consternations. We speak to this world with hope rather than helplessness when we trust in the Lord and we bring our cries to God. So, to conclude this series, I would leave you with two thoughts.

One, lament stands in the gap between pain and promise. And lament is how you live between a hard life and God's promises. Let's pray. Father, I pray that as we are a people who move through life through the seasons of blessing and through the seasons that quite honestly can feel like a curse Lord.

I pray that you would shift our gaze towards you that we would look upon the man upon the cross and his suffering and in his dying. And that we would find great hope. That he died on the cross, but he raised new life. And that is the. That is the image of the believer, that we would one day be raised to new life, that we would be glorified in your presence, praising you for eternity. And that all the trials and all the temptations and all the pains and all the heartaches and all the disappointments are all tools in your mighty hand to shape and sculpt your people, to sing your praises and to give you glory. It's in your son's name that we pray, amen.