Introduction:
Anxious. Abandoned. Scared. Lonely. Dark. Depressed. Forsaken. Despair.
Do any of these sound familiar? Have you ever had a season of life marked by these adjectives? Perhaps you lost a child, a sibling, a parent. Perhaps life was going great and then out of nowhere tragedy struck. Maybe you struggle with anxiety or depression from time to time. Maybe the mistakes you have made in your past haunt your good memories and ravage them.
In his book “Hillbilly Elegy” J.D. Vance makes this profound statement: “The fallen world described by the Christian religion matched the world I saw around me…When I asked Mamaw if God loved us, I asked her to reassure me that this religion of ours could still make sense of the world we lived in. I needed reassurance of some deeper justice, some cadence or rhythm that lurked beneath the heartache and chaos.”
Above all else, my aim in this sermon is to point your eyes to Christ. Christ is exactly what Mr. Vance needed in his chaotic life, and it is what every single person here today needs.
If you haven’t already, turn to Psalm 13. Charles Spurgeon, the famous 19th century London pastor, said concerning this Psalm: “If the reader has never yet found occasion to use the language of the brief ode, he will do so ere long, if he be a man after the Lord’s own heart.” I agree with Spurgeon, because as Christians I think we struggle to admit when life is dark. I’m not talking about when we have a bad day at work, or we do something irresponsible, and we must live with the repercussions of it (although those things can contribute to a season of life of which we are talking about).
What I am talking about are the seasons of life that occur after something traumatic. The eighteenth anniversary of 9/11 is just three days away. It is a somber experience to walk around that memorial. As you walk around and you read name after name after name of those who died the grief that the numerous families deal with still to this day becomes real. The darkness of that infamous day is tangible. Perhaps you have lost a loved one recently. I have a younger brother who, in my perfect world, should be here today. But in God’s omnipotent, and eternally self-glorifying providence he died shortly after birth twenty-four years ago. July 1st can be an emotionally exhausting day for me sometimes (even though I try to brighten it up with endless posts on social media about the New York Mets paying Bobby Bonilla $1.19 Million for years after he retired). THAT is the sort of emotional turmoil we are talking about today.
This message is admittedly dark and gloomy. That’s ok! The American Christian church, by and large it seems, has this misconception that Christianity is all about sunshine and fresh smelling roses. And if you are going through a season of anxiety, grief, distress, etc… then it is simply because you lack faith—or so they say. But today I set out for us to walk through these six verses and learn from Scripture what the biblical cycle of grief looks like. If you’re like me, sometimes you simply do not know how to pray. You just don’t. There are all these emotions, but no words.
It has been said that “the Psalms teach us that it is ok to pray…
• Help me
• I don’t know
• I am afraid
• I am alone
• I am angry
• I am sorrowful
• Do you hear me?
• Why is this happening?
…while we wait helplessly. In hope.”
It is my hope and prayer today that whenever you find yourself in a season where God seems distant, you will turn to Psalm 13 and you will read it and pray it over and over and over and over again. I hope that you will remember that it is ok to wait helplessly for God to intervene—but that you wait helplessly in hope in Christ. We need it because we live in a world that is ravished by sin and it provides the remedy for the world—“I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”
This Psalm, like so many, is broken down into three easy stanzas. Because I like to keep things simple, and because I’m a good Baptist, they will be our three points. I will admit up front that the wording of the points are neither clever nor original. I borrowed them from the Prince of Preachers, Spurgeon. Nevertheless, they are incredibly helpful for us today. So if you’re taking notes you can jot down these three points: The Question of Anxiety (1-2), The Cry of Prayer (3-4) and the Song of Faith (5-6).
These three points describe the typical cycle of Christians when dealing with something traumatic such as death, divorce or job loss. We forget that God is in complete and total control, and just like Peter we begin to sink. As we are sinking we realize our utter dependence on Christ. We come to the realization, as David did, that God is the source of our being! Coming to this realization then causes us to act. It causes us to rejoice and to sing as the Psalmist says here.
Turn your attention now to our text, Psalm 13 and listen as I read it.
1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 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?
3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Body:
The Question of Anxiety (1-2)
David begins as we often do. "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?" When tragedy hits, is our first response typically praise and thankfulness for the good that is going to come on the other side? No! The first words out of our mouths are usually negative and/or doubting. We, by nature, are prone to assume that God has abandoned us. The biblical authors are no different than we are. Here's the thing: we tend to go to Scripture and view it as sort of a magic eight ball. Most people do not mean to, but it happens. Especially in the world of social media and sound bites-- we tend to take Scriptures out of their natural context and put them on a peaceful background. It makes us feel good, right? And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But it makes it dfficult to approach Scriptures the way they, especially Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, were intended to be read.
We love passages like Ps. 19, 23, 27, etc... because they make us feel good. But we tend to shy away from Psalms like this one. Why is that? I have my own theories as to why, but they aren't relevant to our text today. But what is relevant today is the fact that David put into words what we all have thought and perhaps even exclaimed at one time or another. How many of us would admit that we don't always keep our eyes focused on Christ when things become dark around us? If we are honest, all of us would say that, right? So we can all relate to David here!
We, like David, forget that God never forgets His own. We often forget God and His magnificent omnipresence. We become so caught up in our little world that we forget that the all-sufficient, all-powerful, ever-loving King of Kings is in control of it all!
Lets dive a little bit deeper. Lets look at David's complaints. They are: God's unkindness, David's own uneasiness and his enemy's insolence.
Was God being unkind to David? No! Had God actually forgotten him? Again, no. David feared that God had forsaken him. Matthew Henry says concerning David's fear (and ours as well):
"Not that any good man can doubt the omniscience, goodness, and faithfulness of God; but it is a peevish expression of prevailing fear, which yet, when it arises from a high esteem and earnest desire of God's favour, though it be indecent and culpable, shall be passed by and pardoned, for the second thought will retract it and repent of it. God hid his face from him, so that he wanted that inward comfort in God which he used to have, and herein was a type of Christ upon the cross, crying out, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? God sometimes hides his face from his own children, and leaves them in the dark concerning their interest in him; and this they lay to heart more than any outward trouble whatsoever."
We have approached this text so far from the angle of dealing with a dark season of life due to something tragic happening, but for a minute lets look at it from a different angle. What about those seasons of life were we are negligent to repent of sin and persist in sins? Henry here points out that God hid His face from him "so that he wanted that inward comfort in God which he used to have...God sometimes hides his face from His own children, and leaves them in the ark concerning their interest in Him." In that instance, when we are so ignorant of God's grace, God leaves us to our folly. Mind you, God does not forsake us. Though it is an insufficient example, it is like when your child refuses to listen so you pull back just a little bit and let them find out first hand why you told them not to do such a thing.
I realize that the example falls apart at many levels, but I think we get the gist of it. When we intentionally rebel against God and we continuously walk in opposition and unrepentance God very well might leave us to our sin in order to make us long for His presence again.
David then complains about his own uneasiness. "How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?" David's uneasiness was directly related to his believing that God had forsaken him. How many of us can relate to this particular portion of David's prayer? Those long, drawn-out, tear soaked prayers often leave a mark on us. Those times when God feels so distant from us and all we know to do is to cry out "How long, O Lord?" Those times when we do as David confesses here, we "take counsel in [our] soul". That is to say that we over think situations. We seek guidance from literally anything or anyone other than the source of all knowledge. And then we wonder if God has forsaken us. It's not that God has forsaken us, for that would be so antithetical to His nature, but rather God is renewing in us that sense of longing for Him!
David's final complaint concerns his enemy's persistent victory over him. David asks again "How long?" As if it wasn't enough to feel abandoned by God, now David's enemy is constantly prevailing over him. We're only on verse two, but David's prayer seems to be getting worse. Now his inability to overcome his enemy is contributing to his sorrow.
Transition: David's prayer then turns from being a prayer of questioning God's faithfulness to being a prayer and plea for deliverance. David now realizes God's faithfulness to him in the past and that He will be faithful even now, even in this dreadfully dark season.
The Cry of Prayer (3-4)
Spurgeon said "He remembers at once the root of his woe, and cries aloud that it may be removed. The final absence of God is Tophet's fire, and his temporary absence brings his people into the very suburbs of hell. God is here entreated to see and hear, that so he may be doubly moved to pity. What should we do if we had no God to turn to in the hour of wretchedness?" God's absence in David's life is doing what it was intended to do, namely, to bring David back. David's prayer has turned from one of questioning to one of asking God to "consider and answer" him. This might seem like a small and obscure detail, but notice what David is asking of God. He is asking that God 1) Consider him and 2) Answer him. It is a plea that God would not only look upon him but also would listen to him.
David is not asking that God would simply look at him and give him a once over. David is pleading for God to search him, to look intently at him and to rescue him. In verse one we saw that David feels as though God has abandoned him and has turned His face from him. We know that God hasn't forsaken David, and we know that God hasn't forsaken us too, but this is still our prayer! It is our prayer because, as Matthew Henry makes plain, it is asking "Lord, enable me to look beyond my present troubles and to foresee a happy issue of them."
If we're honest, our natural inclination is not to look and find the good in our situation. Spurgeon notes that
"It is a great relief to the miserable and afflicted, to be pitied by others. It is some relief when others, though they cannot help us, yet seem to be truly concerned for the sadness of our case;" This is true of all people, we are designed to comfort one another and to feel some degree of relief from being consoled by others. Far too often, though, people wallow in their sorrow and grief. We try to milk it for all its worth. There is a weird satisfaction that comes with being pitied. We need to remember the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
David has made the turn from focusing on his anxiety to making, as Spurgeon says, a "cry of faith".
"O Lord my God". Just two verses earlier David was questioning whether or not God had forgotten him or was hiding His face from David. David thought God had broken the covenant and forsook him. Now he cries out "O Lord MY God". Do we, like David here, cry out in faith during our darkest seasons? Do we acknowledge our complete and utter dependence on God? Do we acknowledge that "all things work together for good for those who love God"? Believer, even the darkest day of your life is being used for your good and ultimately for God's glory.
"Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" David has reached the pivoting point of his prayer. "Lord, unless you intervene I will die and my enemy will prevail over me!" This phrase has double meaning for us. On the one hand we need God to "light up our eyes", we need the Spirit to illuminate the Gospel to us. On the other hand, in dark seasons like this one, we need the Spirit to "light up our eyes" so that we can see God in the darkness. As has been evidenced earlier, David has lost sight of God. Now he pleading for God to reveal Himself to him. To put it simply and plainly, David needs God to save him. Why?
"Lest I sleep the sleep of death" David's enemy was obviously breathing down his neck. David knew that his life was in danger. His trials were so much that death seemed imminent. Our trials are likely not that intense, however our trials often leave us shaken. How often do we plead for God to "light up our eyes"? Do we seek God, genuinely seek God, in the darkest times? It is in the darkest seasons that Christ shines the brightest.
After significant time spent dwelling on the anxiety that comes from believing God has forsaken him, David turns to a song of praise in verses 5-6.
A Song of Praise (5-6)
"I have trusted in Your steadfast love" The first words out of David's mouth in this psalm were essentially "where are You? Why have you abandoned me?" Yet David says that he has trusted in God's steadfast love. It is curious that the translators of the ESV chose the word "steadfast". It is a very specific term. It means "abiding, dedicated, faithful, unwavering". This is coming from a guy who not even four verses previously believed God had forsaken him and was hiding His face. Despite the affliction, despite the hardship, despite darkness, at the end of the day David saw God's steadfast love. Not only did David see God's steadfast love, he trusted in it!
As a kid learning to swim I was terrified of the water. My dad would set me on the edge of the pool, get into the water and tell me to jump. Even though I could see my dad, and I knew that he would catch me, I couldn't do it. Why? I could see him. He was right in front of me. I didn't trust him.
We know that God's love is faithful. We know that it is eternal and that it endures even when we lose sight of it. We even know these things to be true in our darkest hour, but do we believe it? We know it in our minds, but do we believe it? Belief leads to action. In the case of David his trust in God's steadfast love lead to rejoicing in God's salvation and singing because God dealt bountifully with him.
It is in this season that we begin to see Christ as our true and steady anchor. We see that it is Christ that is our only hope. We see that Christ has been faithful throughout all the ages. That, my friends, causes us to rejoice.
Let me ask a question that can be a hard pill to swallow. I want you to evaluate your "worship" of the triune God. When we sing, whether it is here or at home or in the car or wherever, is our singing characterized by a melancholy demeanor, heartlessness and more of a chore? Or in our singing are we rejoicing and celebrating the love of God and His salvation?
When we are coming out of a dark season it is far easier to celebrate God's goodness, love and salvation than whenever we've been coasting along. David's realization here of God's steadfast love and salvation produced the action of worship. This worship is intrinsically tied to David's realization that even though he doubted God's presence and His faithfulness, God was still there; God was still faithful.
Notice that David says that the Lord "dealt bountifully with me." David is saying that despite everything that has happened God has still treated him well. Adam Clarke observes "My sorrows were deep, long continued, and oppressive, but in thy favor is life. A moment of this spiritual joy is worth a year of sorrow! O, to what blessedness has this godly sorrow led! He has given me the oil of joy for the spirit of heaviness, and the garments of praise for mourning."
Conclusion/Application
You are here today and you could be coming out of a really dark season, or you might be getting ready to go through a really dark season, you might even be in the middle of a dark season. No matter where you are in life, we can all relate to David’s cry.
While that is important, the most important thing is that we acknowledge who it is that David turns to—God.
We have the privilege of looking back in hindsight. Davie wrote this Psalm in distress. It is real, it is passionate and it is filled to the brim with raw emotion. And as we study it today and seek to apply it to ourselves today, we can see Christ oh so clearly in it. Christ is the solution to David’s sorrow equally as much as Christ is the solution to our sorrow! Briefly, lets break review the passage and then make application.
• “How long will you hide your face from me?”—Christ is the incarnation of God. The revelation of the Gospel of grace to mankind. Christ has been revealed to you today.
• “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?”—Christ reigns in victory right now! If you have found eternal life in Christ, if you have experienced the life-changing grace, if Christ is your advocate then you share in the victory and Satan will not prevail over you in the end.
• “light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death”—There are two options at the end of life: eternity with God or eternity separated from God. Separation from God is “the sleep of death”. Conversely, Christ is the one who “lights up the eyes”.
• “But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”—Christ sent as the Redeemer of sinners is conclusive example of God’s steadfast love. Do you rejoice in the salvation wrought for you at Calvary? Or do you walk in darkness? Will you today rejoice in the salvation that is freely offered to you, or will you continue to walk in darkness, ignoring the light upon the hill? Lest we think we deserve or earn this salvation, the Apostle Paul says that this salvation is by grace through faith and that it is “a gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” It is God and God alone who grants salvation—that, my friends, is great news!
The darkest day in history occurred some two thousand plus years ago when God sent His Son Christ to die and redeem His bride. But this death wasn’t a peaceful death, it was quite literally an earth-shaking event. The Gospel writers note that on the cross, Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” That is utter darkness. Jesus bore your sins, your due judgment, He experienced God the Father turning His face from Him.
But the story does not end there. Jesus was buried and three days later He rose in victory! That is the Gospel that we at Cornerstone proclaim! So it does not matter where you are today, it does not matter if you are at the mountain peak or in the lowest point in the valley, you need to turn your eyes to Jesus and trust Him with your heart and profess Him with your mouth. This is the call of the Gospel—“repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”(Mark 1:15) and “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved… For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:9, 13)
As we transition to singing, let me urge you not to delay. Do as David did in our text and trust in God’s steadfast love, rejoice in the salvation that is found only in Christ! (Prayer)
