When God is Silent: Men's Bible Study

Introduction/Scripture

General introduction, catch up to this point. Joseph sold into slavery that leads him to Potiphar court.

Things are going great until Potiphar’s wife:

Genesis 39:16–20 NIV

16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.” 19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison,

But while in prison, he finds favor in the eyes of the prison warden and made responsible for all done there.

Chapter 40:

He is in charge of the cupbearer and the baker. They have these dreams and Joseph interprets them. Bad news for the baker and good news for the cupbearer.

Genesis 40:20–23 NIV

20 Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand—22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation. 23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.

After two years… dreams to Pharaoh, finally the cupbearer remembers Joseph....

What do you do when God is silent?

5 times in Genesis 39 (as things are going very wrong), the Scripture narrates for us that God was with Joseph in the hard places. What does this indicate about the nature of God?

How do you think Joseph hangs in there? What do you do in the deserts of your life?

Why is lament important?

Well I think we have become the worst Christian radio station.

Carl Trueman is therefore right: “A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party—a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals.”1

1 Smith, R. S. (2017). Belting out the Blues as Believers: The Importance of Singing Lament. Themelios, 42(1), 90.

Psalm 57 NIV

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” Of David. A miktam. When he had fled from Saul into the cave. 1 Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. 2 I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. 3 He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me— God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. 4 I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts— men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. 5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. 6 They spread a net for my feet— I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path— but they have fallen into it themselves. 7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. 8 Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. 9 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. 10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

Lament: Expression of Grief or Sorrow

So this morning we are going to look at Psalm 57 and see what is important from this practice of lament. I am going to offer a few things that I see in this prayer and what is needed for us to recapture.

When we lament we are shining light on half truths, lies, and deception

Can I tell you a vulnerable honest example of this....a couple of years ago…Scott

When we lament we bring everything in us under the light. Remember the quote from Eugene Peterson that I shared a couple of weeks ago....

Untutored we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not….It is the means by which we get everything in our lives out in the open before God.

I continue to be “…convinced that only as we develop raw honesty and detailed thoroughness in our praying do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the Psalms”

(Eugene Peterson, The Message, 911).

Psalm 57:4–6 NIV

4 I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts— men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. 5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. 6 They spread a net for my feet— I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path— but they have fallen into it themselves.

I wonder if this is the psalmist half truths. Even acknowledging that there is a metaphorical pit before him, he sees that that is a demise of the enemies already.

John Calvin describes these feelings of half-truths, deception and lies as “distracting emotions.” Walter Brueggeman calls individuals under their power as being disoriented. I love his quote about lament psalms:

“We must not make these Psalms too “religious” or pious. Most of the lament Psalms are the voice of those who “are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.” They are not religious in the sense that they are courteous or polite or deferential/ They are religious only in the sense that they are willing to speak this chaos to the very face of the Holy One. Thus the lament Psalm. for all its preoccupation with the hard issue at hand, invariably calls God by name and expects a response. At crucial point, the Psalm parts company with our newspaper evidence and most of our experience, for it is disorientation addressed to God. And in that address, something happens to the disorientation. “ - Walter Brueggmann

What are your half truths, lies, deception? That you are the failure? That you will not survive this. That everything that can go wrong will continue to go wrong? That God is not listening, God is not present. God has forgotten about you.

These things are like a disease that if left in the body will kill you. You need to cut them out.

When we lament that is what we are doing....speaking chaos to the face of the Holy one.

When we lament we are bringing to God our honesty framed with hope

Lament inherently carries with it a hope. When a Christian pours out pain and difficulty and enters into a season of honest suffering…hope is not far away…or it cannot be far away.

Look at the psalm:

Psalm 57:2–4 NIV

2 I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. 3 He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me— God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. 4 I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts— men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

Today I want to declare, give permission even, that it is ok to not be ok. Dont put that mask on right now. The, “I’m ok” mask.

John Lynch in the Cure, “No one told me that when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love.”

This will always be a place that you should take your mask off....Church for too long, as Smith writes,

But, can I also declare to you today that we have a hope that can never be taken away. What we know in Jesus Christ is that God knew the world was jacked up. He knew that we were jacked up but also that things were not right. For so long we have minimized the cross to simply mean a ticket into heaven for believers. The cross of Christ is a judgement on all that is wrong. The cross of Christ is the suffering of cancer, of diseases, it is the pain of slavery and trafficking, it is the heartbreak of abandoned children, it is attack of death itself.

The cross of Jesus Christ is our hope and our reminder that God is present

The cross of Jesus is God giving God’s-self for the brokenness of the world.

This leads me to the next point,

When we lament we are in good company

When we lament, God brings us closer to the cross of Christ and thereby closer to the empty tomb.

An Scholar journal featuring an essay about bring lament back in the church writes:

Smith says lament is not a silver bullet for turning bad into good...

But it does highlight its God-given capacity of assisting us in the honest articulation of sorrow, the effective processing of pain and the awakening of genuine hope. For “the psalms of lament do not dismiss or deny or seek to avoid sorrow. On the contrary, they allow a grieving person to move more fully into the valley of the shadow; knowing on different levels, that no matter what, God is indeed present in the sorrow.” But more than that, they point beyond sorrow; for even though their primary “focus is on process rather than result it must be recognized that there is a patent expectation, on the part of the psalmist, of some kind of resolution.”1

1 Smith, R. S. (2017). Belting out the Blues as Believers: The Importance of Singing Lament. Themelios, 42(1), 104–105.

The psalmist knows God’s presence right at the beginning....

Psalm 57:1 NIV

1 Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

For those who suffer (and are aware and acknowledge it) there is a potential of intimacy with the crucified Christ that is beautiful and mysterious, and on the otherside, resurrection. Paul understood this

Philippians 3:10–11 NIV

10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

For those mourning the loss of a loved one on this all saints day we celebrate the resurrection of the dead. For those that are here today, walking through trials and hardships I want you to know Jesus presence with you and I want you to know resurrection.

And finally....

When we lament we open the door for worship

All of these build. Because we have brought into the open lies and deception, because our lament is framed in hope, because we are joined with the God who is present in the suffering....we open the door for worship.

The Psalmist turns to worship...

Psalm 57:7–11 NIV

7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. 8 Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. 9 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. 10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

First, I know it does not always get here. There are psalms like Psalm 44 and 86 that are unresolved. I know that worship in the hardest moments is difficult. That is why lament is so important because we can repeat steps 1-2 until we get there.

Worship is possible because in our lament God is faithful. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Worship is possible because the half-truths, lies and deception are cast aside…set straight. In the company of the cross leads to the restoration of the empty tomb…Worship is possible because in lament you are face to face with God.