Psalm 13 Wholly in Two Houses

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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May 26, 2024

Don Filcek; Psalm 13 Wholly in Two Houses

00:20: You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. All right, well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
00:28: As Juliet said, I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And I am really excited for the
00:33: Summer Series in the Psalms. I encourage you all to read what you can as you get an opportunity to go through that.
00:40: It's not going to be graded, so don't worry if you miss a day here or there. Just pick right back up where we're at.
00:46: You don't have to do make -up time. You can if you want to, but you don't have to. Like I said, it's not graded by me.
00:52: Your progress isn't graded by God. It's between you and Him. And I actually believe that the more that you engage with His Word, the more you will be built up and strengthened and encouraged and convicted and reminded of the glorious gospel by which we are justified and being sanctified.
01:07: And so our hope and our rest and our trust is all found in the pages of Scripture. And that's where our strength comes from.
01:16: We're going to be diving into these Psalms, and the Psalms are meant to be felt.
01:22: They are meant to be felt. And many of us don't do—some of us in the room don't do very well with feelings. Some of us do really well and maybe over well with feelings.
01:29: So the Psalms, I'm going to be honest, were not always my favorite. I've grown into them as I've lived a bit and as I've aged a bit and as I've been around the
01:40: Son a few times. And it's not to say that the Psalms, the fact that they're felt, doesn't mean that they don't have anything to teach.
01:46: They do teach us. But what they teach us is set into the poetry and song in a way that's meant to capture real human emotions and real human feelings.
01:56: And I would go so far as to say we're missing the point of a Psalm if we feel nothing when we read it.
02:04: We're missing the point of it if we feel nothing when we read it. The author had something in their head, yes, but they also had something in their heart that they desired to express in their writings.
02:15: Our text this morning is going to take on an obvious tone right out of the gate. When I read it, you're going to go like, oh, I get where he's going with this.
02:21: David is wearing his heart on his sleeve. And despite the fact that he was a valiant man of courage on the battlefield and fought the giants and did all of this amazing stuff, he was also a man of poetry.
02:32: And he wears his heart on his sleeve. And it shows in a lot of his Psalms and a lot of his writings.
02:37: We catch David in a moment of despair with a pen in his hand here in the text that we're going to be looking at.
02:43: And our text is going to dive deep into sorrow and frustration and internal struggle and even fear of enemies.
02:50: What we're going to be looking at this morning is a lament. And as a matter of fact, I chose this Psalm particularly because it is identified by many scholars as the quintessential lament from the
03:01: Psalms. It's short. It's brief. It's compact. It contains the basic elements of an ancient lament.
03:06: And it actually is kind of the one that the scholars point to. If you want to understand lament, study Psalm 13 to get the overall feel of ancient lament.
03:18: But I didn't choose this Psalm as an academic venture to teach us about the genre of lament or to understand it and dissect it.
03:26: I chose it because I'm convinced that many of us are in a season where this is an amazing message for our hearts.
03:32: It's something that's beneficial for us to hear. I confess I didn't choose it because it's graduation
03:37: Sunday. But man, do I think this is a good message for graduates to hear. Man, do I think that this is a good message for those who are taking the next step in life to understand that there is hardship.
03:46: There is pain. And there is also great glory. This lament reminds us that sorrow is a distinct reality in the world.
03:55: Even as David never loses sight of the hope that he has in the world of God's covenant of love and salvation. And so he holds on and gives us something firm to hold on to in the storms of life.
04:05: How many of you think that's a good message? You lived enough to know that's a good message that we need to hear. That there is something stable.
04:11: There is something rock solid in a world where everything else around us feels like it is shifting. Well, David here has real sorrows.
04:18: He has real worries. And real world problems. While he keeps a grip on the objective covenant love of God in the midst of those storms.
04:27: And the psalms should lead us all to consider what it looks like to have our feet firmly planted in two worlds.
04:35: This is a message of living in two places at the same time.
04:40: And we have a very good understanding that you can't be in two places at once except in the
04:45: Christian life you are. And you're going to see that as we go through this text. We are those who can both say at the same time,
04:53: How long will you hide your face, O Lord? And you have dealt bountifully with me.
05:01: Same song. Same author. Same time. Sitting down and writing these words.
05:06: How long will you hide your face? You have dealt bountifully with me. The Christian can say both of these things.
05:12: Because we live in this fallen, sin -cursed world. While we've been brought into newness of life through the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
05:21: We do indeed have a real participation in this life of heartache and pain.
05:28: And a real inheritance in the life to come. Troubled and secure.
05:36: Crushed but not destroyed. Dying but raising to new life.
05:43: All of our days lived in the valley of the shadow of death. While walking moment by moment in his spirit.
05:52: This Psalm of Lament makes sense of what we all feel as those being redeemed in a fallen world. So listen to David say,
05:59: How long, O Lord? And you have dealt bountifully with me. Let's open our
06:05: Bibles or your devices or your scripture journals to Psalm 13. To take in this first Psalm that we're going to be hearing from over the course of this summer.
06:13: We cast God's holy word. Which might be shocking to hear the way that David just emphatically pours his heart out.
06:22: And almost kind of vomits his frustration out onto the page for us. And yet this is God's holy word.
06:31: Psalm 13. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
06:38: 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?
06:47: How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me,
06:52: O Lord my God. Light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest the enemy say,
06:58: I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love.
07:07: My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.
07:17: Let's pray. Father, the
07:26: Psalms give us words in the darkness of our lives.
07:33: In the frustration. In the moments. They give us words to speak into the delights and joys.
07:41: And every emotion in between. I thank you that your word revealed to us is not some sanitized, unattainable speech.
07:51: That is high and lofty and above us and doesn't relate to us.
07:57: And something that we just are trying constantly our entire lives to strive after. But rather we see guys like David at wit's end.
08:05: Frustrated. Spending long nights of counsel in their hearts. Trying to solve their own problems and figure things out.
08:11: And turning to you in prayer and crying out. Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity to go through the
08:18: Psalms this summer. That you would meet us in this book. You would meet us here in these raw and real words.
08:25: Real words of praise. Real words of frustration. Real words of angst that express from the soul of a person.
08:33: Just how hard it can be to live in a sin -cursed, fallen place. We thank you that these
08:40: Psalms also give us something stable to hold on to. When all else fails, we trust in your steadfast love.
08:48: We have an anchor for our souls. That is Jesus Christ, our
08:54: Lord. Father, I pray that even in the midst of the hardships that are represented in this room.
08:59: We could get up and spend an entire hour just testifying of the hard things in our lives. Father, I pray that you would allow those things to fade into the background.
09:09: As we contemplate and consider the gospel. The hope that we have in Christ. The salvation that's been given to us.
09:14: The covenant love that you have expressed to your people. And that that would fuel our praise. That we would indeed now sing songs of genuine praise to you.
09:23: From the place of hardship. From the place of difficult week and difficult things that we're facing.
09:30: Father, that you would meet us here and receive these songs as genuine praise to you. That we would see you high and exalted and lifted up.
09:38: And that we would rejoice in your Son. Who has granted us salvation through his sacrifice for us on the cross.
09:44: And it's in the name of Jesus that I pray these things. Amen. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated.
09:50: And refine your place in Psalm 13. If you've got those scripture journals, open those up to be able to take notes. Or open your devices.
09:57: And if at any time during the message you need more coffee or juice or donut holes. Take advantage of that back there. When it comes to Psalms, it's kind of like a little bit like the story of the butterfly.
10:06: You can, you know, it's a beautiful thing. And then you can dissect it. But then it's not a beautiful thing.
10:11: Right? Like, I mean, the more you dissect it, the more you take it apart, the less beautiful it is. And so, Psalms are kind of that way.
10:16: They're meant to be read in whole. They're meant to be felt. And then there's all kinds of technical ways.
10:22: That people kind of, scholars really have poured over the Psalms for centuries. And centuries and centuries.
10:27: And there's all kinds of technical outlines. And all kinds of even technical words surrounding the study of a
10:33: Psalm. And so, you know, you can outline this in a very technical way. And it factors in really well.
10:38: Six verses. And it could be three points. I'm going to only have two points this morning. Because I'm going to go with an emotional outline. Not a technical outline.
10:44: A technical outline would be the first two verses are the lament. The second two verses are the petition. The last two verses are the praise.
10:52: But there's a division in the text that has been on my heart and mind. Since I started reading this in preparation for preaching it.
11:01: And there's a division in the text. It's radical and it draws my attention. It keeps me thinking. It's kept me thinking throughout the week.
11:09: In the evenings, it's been on my mind. While I'm riding my bike, it's been on my mind. While I'm walking, it's on my mind.
11:15: And my outline is just simply this. I'm calling it, verses 1 through 4, the house of pain.
11:21: And verses 5 and 6, the house of love. Now some of you just thought in your mind, and we'll get it out of the way.
11:27: Jump around, right? And the house of pain, let's get that out of your way, out of your mind. And then we'll just be able to move on.
11:33: Because I'm going to say house of pain several times. And you guys can go ahead and just say jump around if you want. But some of you have no idea what
11:39: I'm talking about. Artists back in the, was it 90s? 90s. There was a band called the house of pain.
11:46: They sang a very popular song called jump around. So there you go. That's not in my notes. None of that's in there.
11:51: And it actually didn't strike me until this morning that that was going to be an issue standing up here. And I saw some smiles right away when
11:57: I said it. I was like, eh, some people are catching on to that right away. But let's begin with some observations about what it's like to live in the house of pain.
12:04: And, of course, that's a metaphor, right? Well, I'm using that as a metaphor for life in this fallen and broken world.
12:11: And there are some observations that the psalmist, David, I should say, David writes for us right away from the house of pain.
12:17: He's giving us some observations. The house of pain, first of all, we identify is full of questions.
12:23: Where we live here in this place is full of questions. And some of them come at us unanswered.
12:29: The first two verses amount to four rhetorical, really five rhetorical questions beginning, four of them beginning with the simple phrase, how long?
12:38: How long? Do you see it in your text there in the Bible? We start with a time question.
12:45: And isn't that appropriate? We begin with a question of time. Far from being merely a technical question, the question how long, it unveils our heart in a fallen world.
12:56: Because time is not our friend. Have you noticed that? Time is not our friend. But time is an incessant enemy.
13:04: Because, for one primary reason, we have fallen and death and sin are real. Without death, without decay, without pain, without the fear that we live under, time would be a welcomed friend.
13:17: And that's what eternity is all about, is a place without sin and corruption and death and decay and all of those things.
13:23: And so that's what turns time into a friend. And we want all of it. We want eternity in a place like that.
13:30: But, man, if eternity was just this forever, eh. You guys know what
13:37: I'm talking about? Eh. Not so good. And if you can't get your mind beyond this life being eternal, then you're going to just go like, man, how much boredom can
13:46: I take in eternity? Right? But it's not going to be like this. And what
13:52: I'm saying is, in the house of pain, when we ask the question how long, there are days of work that seem super long.
13:58: Like, they seem longer than they are, right? There are dark nights that seem to stretch on for days in this life.
14:04: There are seasons of grief and pain. There are losses that seem to knock the wind out of us.
14:09: How can we take another breath with this hardship that we're facing? There are depressions that often strike us that make it hard to get out of bed at all.
14:19: So how long is a question that we could all rightly ask to God regarding any broken and uncomfortable situation in our lives?
14:29: How long? And I think many of us have asked it. How long is this going to go on?
14:36: And I love how the Psalms are written in a way that are not too specific. Some of them identify some specific context, but most of them don't.
14:45: And just as a course of kind of introducing this series and trying to think this through, the more specific a psalm is, the less it feels like it applies to me.
14:55: David starts talking about swinging a sword. I've never done that. You know what I mean?
15:00: Just play with my neighbor friends in the backyard when I was a kid or something like that. And then I hit
15:06: Jimmy with a stick and then it's all over and he was crying to Mom and all that stuff. You guys know what
15:12: I'm saying. The more specific it is, the less it applies to my situation.
15:17: And so too often, to be quite honest, we desire the context of a specific psalm. We're like, when did
15:22: David write this? Where was he at in his life? As if that's going to give us better application or better understanding.
15:29: But it's good that we don't always have the context. It's good that we don't always have the context because the Psalms are meant to be sung and quoted and memorized and cherished by a wide variety of people, even the people in this room.
15:41: Not just soldiers, not just shepherds, not just kings, not just mothers, but all of us. So despite the fact that we don't know exactly what
15:49: David was facing and what he was going through and where he was living and was he king, was he not king, was he a shepherd, was he young, was he old, his questions here identify for us three general things that he has experienced as problems in the house of pain.
16:02: And I think we faced them, or we will. These three things can relate to us in quite direct application in our experiences of this life here in 2024.
16:16: It's beautiful that the very things that David struggled with way back when can summarize so well our pains and our struggles and our hurts in the here and now.
16:27: So first and foremost, first and most important, and it is foremost important to David, is the line of questioning that we see in verse 1.
16:36: There's a line of questioning here. The first three questions, two of them are how questions, they all surround one primary area, a source of pain in the house of pain.
16:46: And it is the rift he feels between himself and God. One commentary on this passage said that all trouble is theological trouble.
16:56: All trouble is theological trouble, and I agree with that at a very basic level. I think that's absolutely true.
17:02: All hardship, all pain, all sufferings are theological problems. They're problems in regard to our relationship with God.
17:09: They all point to some distance from God's blessing. Anytime that you're hurting, anytime that there's hardship, anytime there's pain, it highlights for us our distance from God's blessing because every single hardship you've ever faced has come about due to the separation that sin has brought into the world.
17:27: And I don't even want to breathe in between this because I'm not saying that all hardship, suffering, and turmoil is the result of your specific sin, not at all.
17:37: But all pain and suffering and death can be tracked back to its source in the garden of Eden.
17:43: All suffering that you have ever experienced can be tracked back to one woman holding a fruit with a bite out of it, and one man holding a fruit with a bite out of it.
17:53: All of the suffering you've ever experienced and will ever experience goes back to that point. A rift in our relationship corporately to our
18:02: God. There in that place in Eden, there in that place, hardship and pain and death began as a curse to our race's rebellion against our creator.
18:14: It all began there. So when David is asking this line of questioning, How long, O Lord?
18:19: Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? When David is asking
18:25: God why he has hidden his face and why he has forgotten him, David, hear me carefully, church,
18:32: David is barking up the right tree. He's got the right tree. My sinful, broken condition has created a separation between me and my creator, and Adam and Eve's broken and sinful relationship with God has separated us all from our creator.
18:50: But I want to point out something that isn't so obvious here, and something that needs to be stated, and it is simply that all true prayer, all true prayer springs from faith.
19:01: And this is a prayer. This song is to God. Do you see Him talking to God? Do you see
19:07: Him addressing the Lord? David's concern over God ignoring him is addressed to whom?
19:14: God, the Lord, Yahweh. He uses God's personal name revealed to Moses.
19:21: And when you tell God that you hate your life and wish you had never been born, like Job, you are at least doing one thing well in the house of pain.
19:31: You're at least doing one thing well. And yeah, as stark and as shocking as those words can be, I hate my life.
19:37: I wish I wasn't born. Job said it. And it says he didn't sin in it.
19:44: What are you doing right? What are you getting right in the house of pain when you address God that way? You're getting one thing right. You're talking to the owner.
19:51: You're talking to management. You're talking to the director. You're talking to the one in charge when you address Him. You're going to the one.
19:59: All true prayer is faith because it assumes what? That somebody's listening.
20:08: It assumes that somebody's listening. David is feeling here the distance of God. And that is the ultimate source of his suffering in this world.
20:17: And he identifies it right out of the gate. He comes to God to talk about their relationship.
20:23: Now whatever hardship he's going through, whatever the specifics of the day in and day out grind that David is going through in this circumstance matters little.
20:32: It is simply that he is suffering. And he identifies that the ultimate source of that suffering is a rift in relationship with God.
20:40: So he comes to talk about their relationship. And I would suggest to you that we all would do well to do more of that in prayer.
20:46: Talk to God about our relationship with Him. Talk to Him about how we're feeling. I feel like we're distant right now.
20:53: I feel like you've turned your face from me. And everything that I touch seems to be going bad. You have seasons like that?
21:00: Or to talk with Him about, wow, you have lavish bounty on me. You have blessed me so much, right?
21:05: Right now things seem to be going well. And talk about His relationship then and say, I don't know why, but you have drawn near to me in blessing and I thank you for that.
21:13: But talk about that relationship. To talk to God about how we feel about Him is all fair game.
21:20: And I love the reason why it's fair game to talk about our relationship with Him in regard to our suffering, because He entered this house of pain with us.
21:29: He knows what it's like to deal with this kind of stuff. Jesus Himself felt suffering, and He Himself cried out to His Father in anguish.
21:40: Our rift from God is our most fundamental source of pain. And that's identified in verse 1.
21:46: But there's a second area of pain that we experience in this place.
21:52: And it's the internal struggle that David feels in his own mind and heart, starting in verse 2.
21:59: How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day long?
22:05: It's the third how long question. How long must I take counsel in my soul?
22:11: The internal struggle of David with himself is coming out here. We all know what it's like to feel distance from God.
22:18: But I also believe we all know what it's like to have turmoil and upheaval in our own hearts and minds. I can get caught up in internal meetings discussing with myself everything from the future, present options, and past mistakes.
22:31: Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Do you ever hold counsel with yourself? Do you ever have a meeting with yourself? Me, myself, and I just over here having a meeting.
22:40: That's what David says he did. He says, I know what it's like to be you. I know that you have these conversations in your mind.
22:46: I know that there's not just like going on in your brain. There are conversations that you have with yourself, just hopefully not out loud, right?
22:56: People assume that when I pull up at the stoplight and I'm talking, I'm talking to somebody on the phone. You get a free pass now, right?
23:03: You didn't back in the 90s, but you do now. So now I get a free pass. But having that conversation with myself out loud,
23:09: I do that sometimes. But I think all of us know we have seasons of soul counsel.
23:16: And a season of soul counsel is a season of fretting and worrying over a problem, trying to solve it. And how many of you have ever had a one -issue season?
23:24: A one -issue season. What I mean by that is there's the big thing going on in your life. And whether you're at work or you're at home or you're at play or it's a weekend or it's a vacation, that thing is on your mind.
23:34: Do you guys know what I'm talking about? You have those one -issue seasons. And then, God forbid, but I know it hits us many times, and that some of you here are going through multiple -issue seasons.
23:44: Lots of things. It seems like it's more than you can handle. One thing after another after another. And you're up at night thinking through, how am
23:51: I going to solve this and this and this? And how is it all going to come together? We have those seasons where the one big thing is always before us.
24:00: And we have other seasons where there's some issues. And we have a few hard things that are taking up your bandwidth.
24:06: You're not much help at work anymore. You're not much help at home anymore because your mind is consumed by problems.
24:14: And you're awake at night wondering how to fix it. And David is tired of trying to fix the problems in his own head.
24:21: How long am I going to have to keep this up? How long is this going to be plaguing me? How long is it going to be on my mind,
24:27: God? It's obvious that he isn't getting anywhere, and he knows it. In the house of pain, we don't only go through seasons of feeling separated from God, but we also go through seasons of inner turmoil as we seek to find solutions to our own complicated and very complex problems.
24:44: And then lastly, the line of questions moves to the struggle David has with other people, who he summarizes here with the word enemies.
24:53: He is under the thumb of others. He feels like those who oppose him are always getting ahead. Anybody know what
24:58: I'm talking about there? Feels like those in opposition are always just one step ahead of him, always a little more blessed, always a little more resources.
25:07: And we might not immediately assume that we can relate to this idea of enemies. It depends on our lives, but,
25:14: I mean, it might be hard to identify what's a real enemy. David had pretty well -defined lines, right? He had the
25:19: Philistines, he had the Moabites, the Edomites, and all those other ites. But I would suggest to you that we do too.
25:25: They don't take the shape of national armies lining up against our forces, but they are no less real.
25:32: I don't think it's misapplying this poetry to consider a neighbor who despises you for your faith or a coworker who's constantly badgering you and trying to tear you down in front of your boss.
25:44: But I also think a prayer of how long can accompany our reading of the headlines or watching the news or watching this election year unfold.
25:54: How long, O Lord, will you allow wicked leaders to prevail? Can you imagine a prayer like that today?
26:00: It might need to be on many of our lips. Many of those, Father, who are exalted over us are in opposition to you,
26:08: O Lord. How long? How long until you send forth your
26:15: Son to make it right? From the vantage point of the house of pain,
26:20: David is concerned for his relationship with God. He's concerned for his relationship internally to turmoil and his broken relationship with others.
26:31: Isn't this a pretty good summary of life in a fallen world? Broken relationship with God, broken relationship with self, and broken relationship with others.
26:39: Do you see David's turmoil? Do you relate to it? Can you understand it?
26:47: And here God is giving us a license to come to Him with a wide variety of concerns through prayer.
26:52: The house of pain is indeed a place of painful questions, but the house of pain is also a place of fear.
27:00: David turns from rhetorical questions in the first two verses to petitioning God to act in the second two.
27:06: He issues three prayers, and we're still in the house of pain, but he issues three prayers that we ought to pray often.
27:13: Hear me, help me, shine on me. Hear me, help me, shine on me.
27:21: The two opening words of verse three amount to the phrase that I'm translating, hear me and help me, addressed to his
27:29: God, and then the metaphor of lighting up my eyes is one of shining the light of blessing upon us.
27:36: That's an Old Testament metaphor that's used commonly so that I can say pretty confidently that the idea of him lightening up our eyes is shining his light on us in a way that results in his blessing and benefit and help to us.
27:51: I'll give you an example, number 625. You can jot that reference down and look it up later.
27:57: It's the priestly covenantal prayer to be prayed over the people, and it says this. I think it's going to be up on the screen, but the
28:03: Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
28:12: Note the phrase the Lord make his face shine upon you and the Lord lift up his countenance. That's his face, the way he looks.
28:20: Let it all be upon you for peace, for grace, for his kindness. For God to make his face shine upon a person is for that person to receive his favor and his blessing.
28:32: And that's what David wants. David is asking God to hear his cries from the house of pain. David is asking for God to give answer in the form of help.
28:40: And David is asking God to send forth his blessings to rescue him. But not a lot of that looks like fear except here as we get near the end of verse 3.
28:54: This is where the fear comes in. David believes that death is looming. Since we have absolutely zero context given for this, and since it is meant to be meaningful to us and the congregation of Israel at large who would sing this song together,
29:09: I think this death is not meant to be understood too narrowly as if he's on the battlefield and being pressed and about to lose and fearful for his life.
29:17: The psalm applies more broadly than to only people on their deathbed or a soldier on a battlefield fearing that this is the day he goes.
29:26: The dramatic use of language and poetry and song is likely at play here in this understanding of I think
29:32: I'm about to die. Was David going to literally die when he wrote this? I dare say no.
29:38: There were plenty of circumstances in his life where David was close to death. He was a soldier with like that kind of warfare.
29:46: Like I would imagine that sometimes the swords came close. Sometimes the arrows narrowly missed.
29:53: But his concerns, and hear me carefully, despite the fact that he was literally at risk of death, his concerns were over exaggerated.
30:02: You say, really? Well, it's evidenced by his death in a bed surrounded by people he loved. That's how
30:08: David dies. Many times he cried out, I'm about to die. My enemies surround me.
30:13: How am I going to make it out of this one? And God rescues him and he ends up dying at a ripe old age. You see what
30:20: I'm saying? A little bit like not necessarily overblown in the risk, but a bit dramatic.
30:27: My point is that we often feel like we just can't go on another day. When God has a plan to preserve us for many years to come and use us,
30:36: I would suggest to you that it is fully appropriate to express even the silliest of fears to God. Even the silliest of fears to God.
30:44: Panic attacks are on the rise in America. Many of us have at times felt the psychosomatic effects of stress that push us into fight or flight.
30:53: I can tell you personally a panic attack makes you think you're having a heart attack. In times of deep duress or stress, we may feel just like David here and want to say something like,
31:05: God, if you don't hear, if you don't provide an answer, if you don't show up with a basket full of miracles right now,
31:11: I'm going to die. You guys know what I'm talking about? That feeling, that pressure, that stress, that worry, that concern.
31:21: Maybe over exaggerated at times, but feels very real in the moment.
31:28: My point is, regardless of whether you are prone to panic attacks or whether you're pretty easy going and don't even know what
31:34: I'm talking about right now because you're just like, Jill, however you're put together, fear will stalk us in this house of pain, will it not?
31:43: Fear stalks us. In this world, we will have troubles. One day, we will see all of this, all of this, all of it as light and momentary afflictions, but we still live in a world currently with afflictions.
31:59: And the last observation in the house of pain is that it often feels like enemies are given the upper hand.
32:07: We hear the gloating as the media tells us that we are on the wrong side of history, which is another way of saying their way has prevailed over our way.
32:17: We live in a world where enemies of God seem to sit in high positions, and our media rejoices over every painful failing of a religious leader, right?
32:25: They rejoice when the church of our Lord is shaken. They gloat when Christ and his followers are brought low.
32:33: We live in a world of real pain and real suffering. There is a genuine sense of separation from our
32:39: God. There are genuine seasons of internal strife. There are seasons of indecision. There are seasons of motivational paralysis where it's hard to get out of bed, and holding what seems to be endless counsels in our mind.
32:50: And there are real enemies who would love to see us fail, falter, and fall. And so in faith,
32:58: David shows us what to do in those moments. Cry out to God.
33:05: Cry out to God with honest frustration. Let him know when you feel forsaken. Let him know when you're exhausted with attempts to solve your own problems.
33:14: Let him know your fears that your enemies might prevail. And then remember that you do not only live in one house.
33:24: You don't only live in the house of pain. But for those of us who belong to Jesus Christ by faith and his redeeming work on the cross, we have dual citizenship.
33:32: We can be in two places at once. We know the house of pain, but we also live and move within the house of love.
33:41: Not the love shack. Not the B -52s here. But the place of stability and hope in the love that God has already granted us.
33:52: Verse 5 takes such a radical shift in tone, that some scholars have actually invented a context for this to be read.
33:58: They've, out of whole cloth, they've invented a context and a scenario in which this would have been read in the synagogues, and they've invented it, there's no evidence for it.
34:06: They literally say, oh, verses 1 through 4 would be read by the congregation. Then the priest would stand forth and issue a declaration.
34:14: The Lord hath granted our prayer. And then the congregation would read verses 5 and 6.
34:21: And they would finish it. As if the answer has to be provided in order for us to bless the
34:26: Lord. Do you get what I'm saying there? But that's not, there's no evidence that that actually is the context.
34:32: As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that if this was God's intention in reading this, then between verses 4 and 5, there would be something that says something like, and then
34:43: God heard my plea from on high and granted my request. Which some psalms do say.
34:50: So there are some psalms that indicate the answer of God over the request, and therefore
34:55: I rejoice, or whatever. But here in this lament, in this quintessential lament, we don't see him answering the prayer of David.
35:03: We don't know whether or not his enemy was destroyed, whether or not he got the solution so he didn't have to spend all night considering it in his mind.
35:11: We don't know whether David suddenly felt God's presence close to him and was suddenly like, all that was solved.
35:20: No such verse or statement exists between verses 4 and 5. Instead, we can look into the heart of the poetry here to see what has made the turn for David to sudden trust in God.
35:32: Is it that God came through for him? God healed? God gave bounty? God blessed the business deal?
35:39: God blessed the merger? God solved all of the problems? God drew near and let him just bask in his glow for a moment?
35:49: And what made the turn? It's a past tense activity that David remembers. A past tense activity of commitment that affects
35:58: David's present and his future. He is crying out from the house of pain, and yet here in this place he says,
36:05: I have trusted in your steadfast love. David has something stable to hold on to in the middle of the storm.
36:16: He has put his trust in God's, I'll give you a Hebrew word here, hesed, H -E -S -E -D is the way it's usually transliterated.
36:23: It's a very important word in the Old Testament. It's translated here steadfast love. It could also be called, and I like to call it covenant love.
36:34: This is not a trust in the way that God feels about David. God, I know you like me. I'm a pretty good guy.
36:42: I do quite a bit for you, and look at this whole king thing that I'm doing for you. Serving you a lot, so maybe you could do me a solid here.
36:54: No, this is a trust in God to keep His promises. Hesed is
37:00: God's covenant love, His commitment to Himself to keep
37:05: His promises. It's as firm and as solid a love and trust as God is firm and solid.
37:14: It's dependent on His character to keep His promises. His covenant to us today, church, is a covenant of grace and a covenant of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, His son that says, if you come through my son,
37:28: I will save you. I will rescue you. I will resurrect you, and I will give you eternal life.
37:34: That promise. Wash away all your sins and all your filth. How many of you want to lean on that covenant love, your trust?
37:44: You have something firm to grasp if you are holding on to that covenant love and trusting
37:49: Him. Our graduates, we're going to celebrate them here at the end of the service and at the start of the next, and our graduates are going off into a real world, a real world that Psalm 13 applies to pretty directly, a world that contains seasons where God will feel distant, a world in which we wrestle in our own thoughts about major life decisions.
38:09: Some of them are right now in a world full of real enemies of our souls, and despite the fact that this doesn't seem like a real rah -rah message, there's a question mark over this, not just for the graduates, for all of us.
38:23: Where can we gain any stability in a world like that? Where can we gain stability in a world like that?
38:31: I believe many of us could rise up and profess money can't anchor you, and you don't have to take our word for it.
38:38: You can check all the testimonies of lottery winners who identify the way that winning the lottery ruined their lives.
38:44: There are websites dedicated to that. Athletic prowess can't do it. Watch the interview.
38:51: There's a shocking, haunting interview that I watch occasionally. I go back to it with Tom Brady after number five.
38:58: After number five, he says to a person who shoves a microphone in his face, this can't be all there is.
39:04: He doesn't say it that emphatically. He says it pretty dejectedly, actually. This can't be all there is. It's like that.
39:10: This can't be it. I thought I would be more satisfied than this. That gives me chills to think about.
39:20: The reality of what we strive after that cannot match our souls, that is nothing stable to hold on to.
39:27: But the minute you grab a hold of athletic prowess, it goes right through your hands like sand. The minute you try to strive after wealth, right through your hands.
39:34: Your 15 seconds of fame is just that, and it's gone. What is stable in this world, church?
39:44: What would you stand up here and say is stable to the graduates who are being launched out into the world? What serves as that stabilizing anchor in a busted and broken world,
39:55: David says, I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
40:05: Those who trust God through his son, Jesus Christ, maintain a grip on something stable when all else is melting away.
40:12: His love, his salvation, granted by mercy and grace. We are those who mourn, but we don't mourn like those who have no hope.
40:23: We are those who will at times freak out, but not quite to despair. We are those who feel deep feels, deep sorrows, deep frustrations, deep angers, and yes, even seasons of deep fear.
40:36: Now that's not of God, but we feel it, because we're made of the stuff of this world. So in the midst of all feeling all these feelings and freaking out from time to time and mourning from time to time and being sorrowful from time to time and struggling to get out of bed from time to time, never, never, never, never, never, never may it be said of us that we were without hope.
40:59: Never let it be said that we were without hope. Huh. I rejoice in his salvation, because I have trusted in his covenant faithful love.
41:12: My present circumstances are real. I have spent seasons and times of my life in the house of pain, and so have you.
41:23: And how can someone like David sing and rejoice and praise? Look at verse 6. Look at verse 6.
41:30: Because he has dealt bountifully with me. Because he's dealt bountifully with me.
41:37: Do you hear that, church? He who for seasons of our lives might feel absent, he who hasn't stopped all of our enemies, he who lets us spend dark nights wrestling with our own thoughts, he has given us steadfast love, he has given us salvation, he has given us bounty.
41:52: Do you see it? Are you thankful? Are you able to be grateful for anything?
41:58: We serve an awesome God who is not rescuing us out of the storm, but through the storm.
42:05: David knew this. Now, David's not schizophrenic, and he's not one David in the first four verses and a different David in the second.
42:13: He knew he lived in both worlds. He knew he lived in both the house of pain and the house of love.
42:19: And so David has moved to rejoice because he has brought back to an objective anchor in the storm.
42:26: There's something that doesn't move or shift when the waves and storms of life hit. It is God's steadfast love.
42:31: His salvation never budges an inch. The tornadoes that went through a couple of weeks ago,
42:37: I've got an uncle that lives in Mendon, and it tossed his car to the side, went right through his house, pushed him back out of his reclining chair into his bathroom.
42:44: He was sitting there. He's not very technical, and he's 84 years old, and he didn't get that alert.
42:50: Dog was acting weird, and he went to calm the dog, and the next thing he knew, his house was blown up. He's okay.
42:56: He had to have some stitches. But his 50 -pound vice, you guys know what
43:02: I'm talking about when I talk about a bench vice? That's a lot. That's a cast iron. Like, it's just a chunk of metal found 100 yards out in the middle of a cornfield.
43:14: That wind picked that vice up. If anything ought to be stable in the world, it ought to be a vice, right?
43:21: Like, who's going to, what's going to pick that up and throw that? Now the wind. F2 tornado, and it was gone.
43:28: What is stable in the storms of this life? There is something that doesn't budge.
43:36: There is something that is unmovable. His steadfast love and his salvation, church, is going nowhere.
43:42: It's going nowhere. You've got it till your last breath. If you have it at all, you have it till your last breath.
43:51: His commitment to take you, to be with him in the end. If we have a steadfast love and his salvation, we have cause to sing and rejoice.
44:01: We have cause to be glad. We have a cause for our steps to be lighter in this world.
44:07: And in evidence, an illustration of this, how could Paul and Silas be singing? In the book of Acts, we see an account where Paul and Silas have been beaten for their faith.
44:16: Their skin lacerated. And they're in a dark, cold, musty jail cell with lacerated backs for being whipped for Jesus.
44:25: And do you know what they're doing? Can anybody tell me what they're doing? Singing. Some of you know the story. They're singing.
44:31: And why? How could they do that? It's because their circumstances were not their only reality.
44:38: They did not only live in the house of pain. If they only lived in the house of pain, how many of you know their response would be different?
44:44: Different response. But they had something as objective as the wounds on their back. His steadfast, unchanging, covenantal love was theirs.
44:53: His grace and mercy, his promise of salvation. So they sang. Cling to his covenantal love when the wheels are coming off.
45:03: Cling to his steadfast salvation when life seems to be hitting a high -speed wobble and you just don't know if you can recover from the slide.
45:12: He felt it. Remember his steadfast love. Rejoice in his salvation. And count the many, many, many ways that your
45:18: Heavenly Father has dealt bountifully with you. We get to put this into practice right away by coming to the tables of communion to remember his steadfast love and his salvation.
45:29: And I want you to just pause for a second because you're getting ready to put your stuff away. Maybe you've already started. But I want you to listen in as I introduce this and kind of bring us back to communion and to remembering his salvation.
45:40: It's okay if you come feeling some distance from him. That's okay. It's okay if you've been wrestling to solve your own problems on your own.
45:50: It's okay if you found a lot of fear wrapped around your life lately. I would love to ask you, and I think it would be brave to ask you to drop that, drop those things as you come to the table.
46:02: And some of you might just be able to let go of some things by grace this morning as you come to the tables. But even if you cannot drop a single concern that clings to you from the house of pain, come into the house of love and remember that this world doesn't get the final word over your life.
46:19: It doesn't get the final say over your life. His blood, his sacrifice, his cross, and his empty tomb speak over the tragedies and sufferings and troubles of this world, and they speak a much better message over us.
46:33: Sin will not destroy us. We will not remain separated from our God, but he will make his dwelling with us.
46:40: Every problem we've ever spent precious hours worrying over will be as nothing in the end. And every enemy of our king will be put under his feet.
46:49: And so if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, and you're at peace with others here, come take the cup that represents his blood shed for us and trust in his steadfast love.
46:59: Come take the cracker that represents his body broken for us and rejoice in his salvation together this morning.
47:06: Let's pray. Father, I thank you for a word that deals so honestly with our circumstances, that addresses and gives us voice to speak out our concerns and our frustrations to you.
47:21: You indeed are the owner, the creator, the one for whom all things are.
47:28: And so Father, I pray that you would meet each one of us here in these moments as we have an opportunity to process just the pain and the hardship and the circumstances, to seek to the best of our ability to drop those at your feet and come to these tables in reception of the great bounty and blessing that you have given to us in your son.
47:46: And I pray that all of us would cling firmly to that steadfast covenantal love that is poured out for us in Christ.
47:54: And if there's anybody here who has not placed their trust in your covenantal love, in the work that was accomplished by Jesus on the cross for us,
48:03: I pray that you would help them to skip communion and with boldness come and talk with me or come and talk with Mike or come and talk with Dave or just, yeah, that you would lead them to the right person, maybe even the person that brought them or that they know here.
48:18: But Father, we just ask that you would help us to recenter ourselves in the house of love, to identify that location that you have given to us and to thank you for the great bounty that you have poured out on us and the hope that we have that though this life may be suffering, we have an eternity with you.