A Complicated Faith
Notes
Transcript
Psalm 44 begins as a psalm of praise for what God has done, both in the past and for the psalmists’ personally.
1 We have heard it with our ears, O God;
our ancestors have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
2 With your hand you drove out the nations
and planted our ancestors;
you crushed the peoples
and made our ancestors flourish.
3 It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them.
4 You are my King and my God,
who decrees victories for Jacob.
5 Through you we push back our enemies;
through your name we trample our foes.
6 I put no trust in my bow,
my sword does not bring me victory;
7 but you give us victory over our enemies,
you put our adversaries to shame.
8 In God we make our boast all day long,
and we will praise your name forever.
I love the start of this psalm. The psalmist(s) have heard what their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents have told them about God. They’ve heard all about the amazing works of God, what God did for them all those years ago.
They sat at their grandparents’ feet, listening to the stories they told about how God led their grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents out of Egypt. They listened as they told some of the great stories of old:
The crossing of the Red Sea, Joshua conquering Jericho, Shamgar killing 600 Philistines with an oxgoad, Jael driving a tent-peg through Sisera’s head.
You know, all the really good children’s stories.
They listened to what their ancestors told them and came to a wonderful conclusion: “Our God can do what no one else can do.”
This they knew: it wasn’t their ancestors who conquered and drove people out of the land.
It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was [God’s] right hand, [God’s arm], and the light of [God’s] face that accomplished all of that. Because [God] loved them. (Ps. 44:3).
Then, in their own lives, in their own experience, the songwriters have stories about God and His miraculous works. It’s not just the old, old story. They would sing, “This is my story, this is my song.”
So this later generation is still holding to the faith of their ancestors. It’s not just an historical faith, but a contemporary faith in the all-sufficient God.
They confess it’s through [God] they push back [their] enemies, through [God’s name] [they] trample [their] foes/enemies.
Rightly, they say they put no trust in bow or sword.
It’s God who gives them victory; God who puts their adversaries to shame.
This is important to hear. We need these reminders that it’s not our doing. Salvation is not from us.
The LORD says to Hosea, in spite of the unfaithfulness and spiritual adultery of His people:
Hosea 1:7 “I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”
We cannot put any trust in anything we do—not our works, not our religious activity, not our supposed goodness; salvation is not our doing. Salvation is entirely from the LORD.
I’ve accomplished not one single part of my salvation. You have done nothing to warrant salvation.
The LORD saves fully. What He has done for us is entirely sufficient.
“God delivers the slaves from Egypt. God provides for the needy as they wander in the wilderness. God overpowers all obstacles when they enter the land. God revives the hopeless, pitiless exiles.
Now go on and stand at the crucifixion and see how God tramples death and sin. It’s always the sufficiency of God.
‘Not by their sword…nor was it their arm that saved them.’” -Dale Ralph Davis
The psalmists conclude this section of the psalm by saying:
Psalm 44:8 “In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.”
When you first begin to read Psalm 44, you get a feel for what it’s going to be like. But then, something happens.
It’s almost like watching “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” for the first time. The first time I watched it, I was just sure there was a mix-up with the DVD.
Let me play the first moment of the movie for you:
[VIDEO CLIP]
Like the opening of that movie, Psalm 44 begins one way and then takes a sharp right turn and heads another direction. It’s literary whiplash.
The faith that is so clearly expressed in verses 1-9 becomes a little bit…complicated. The psalm takes a turn at verse 9.
9 But now you have rejected and humbled us;
you no longer go out with our armies.
10 You made us retreat before the enemy,
and our adversaries have plundered us.
11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold your people for a pittance,
gaining nothing from their sale.
13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
15 I live in disgrace all day long,
and my face is covered with shame
16 at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
This is where experience contradicts the truth we believe. The turn at verse 9 makes a harsh shift, like my teenage sister driving the family minivan. How she didn’t drop the transmission out of that Dodge Caravan is beyond me.
The psalmist shifts from praising God for all the wonderful things He had done, to blaming God for all of their current defeats.
THE DILEMMA OF FAITH
THE DILEMMA OF FAITH
In the same breath, almost side-by-side, the songwriters sing, “You give us victory…you have rejected us.” It’s all praise and honor, and then they throw the gear-shift into reverse and it’s accusation and finger-pointing.
You have rejected us. You no longer go out with our armies. You gave us up to be devoured and have scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a pittance. You have made us a reproach to our neighbors. You have made us a byword among the nations.
You, you, you.
The shift in tone is a bit of a shock. It’s all “The Littlest Elf” before it screeches to a stop and turns sad and dark, to “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
This is experience versus belief. It’s what’s happening now versus what we’ve been taught about God.
The Bible recognizes the problem. In fact, the Bible brings up the problem so we have to face it.
This—and other prayers and songs recorded in the Bible—are here for us, to help us through moments we face that don’t square with what we believe about God.
When cancer and life-threatening illnesses pop up. When a loved one dies unexpectedly. When friends/family betray.
These things, if we’re not prepared for them, make us say stuff like: “If God really loves me, how could He…”
The Bible forces this conflict upon us. It’s trying to get us to think about these situations, hopefully before we face them.
I love the honestly of the Bible, especially the psalms. It’s not all praise and worship, everything’s great, no issues here, Smiley Joel Osteen and his prosperity false-gospel friends.
That’s not how life is in this broken, sinful world.
There are times—many times—when we can say, “In God, we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever!”
And, perhaps just as often, we can say, “You’ve rejected us and humbled us; you’ve forgotten us.”
For the psalmists, there’s something about the new, hard facts of their experience on the battlefield. The dilemma they face is the contradiction between faith and experience.
They believe God has done all these incredible works for them and for every generation. But now, in their experience, to them it seems like the LORD has abandoned them.
He no longer goes to battle for them. He has given them up to be devoured. He doesn’t care about how their enemies are treating them.
What makes this situation even worse is that there’s no apparent reason or explanation.
17 All this came upon us,
though we had not forgotten you;
we had not been false to your covenant.
18 Our hearts had not turned back;
our feet had not strayed from your path.
19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;
you covered us over with deep darkness.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21 would not God have discovered it,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
The songwriters acknowledge possible reasons for God to punish them and afflict them, but they say that’s not the case here.
They hadn’t forgotten God or broken the covenant. They had stayed on the path; they hadn’t turned back.
If, “if” they say, IF they had forgotten God or were guilty of worshipping another god, the situation they find themselves in would be understandable.
But none of that is the case. They’re not claiming they’re sinless, but that they’ve been true to the covenant. And still, God has crushed them.
This is the dilemma of faith. Sometimes what we believe doesn’t square with our experience.
Derek Kidner clarifies the dilemma like this:
There’s “the revolutionary thought that suffering may be a battle-scar rather than a punishment; the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God.”
We need to look again at verse 22:
22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
The opening phrase of this verse could be translated “Because of you” and that would mean that God has done this for whatever mysterious reason.
Or, we translate it as “on your account” or “for your sake”, meaning it’s because we are God’s people and hated because of that.
Either way we look at it, it works. Sometimes, God has a reason, unknown to us. Other times, we face death all day long and are considered as sheep to be slaughtered because that’s how life works in a fallen world.
This Psalm 44 situation is something Jesus warned His followers about:
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
There’s was a Christian village in Burma. Well, “You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it'll always be Burma to me.”
There’s a small Christian village there whose homes were destroyed by the Myanmar military. It came under fire, then soldiers went house to house igniting them. Over 300 homes burned down.
All 350 homes in another Christian village were destroyed.
For your sake, Lord, one might say, because Buddhists in Myanmar hate the Christians in Myanmar.
Go to Nigeria and hear the mourners as they carry the bodies of the Jesus’ followers to their graves, gunned down because the Islamic terrorists there hate the Christians there.
Psalm 44:22 “Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Talk about a complicated faith…
The psalmist concludes the psalm by pleading with God.
23 Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?
25 We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up and help us;
rescue us because of your unfailing love.
THE PLEA OF FAITH
THE PLEA OF FAITH
The psalmist boldly confronts the Lord. The implication being the Lord might be sleeping, even though we know the LORD neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121).
The disciples accuse Jesus in the same way, with some similar shocking language.
37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
Faith sometimes breaks out in moments of despair and frustration. The psalmist knew well enough, like Jesus’ disciples did, that the LORD does care for them; but they’re frustrated with Him, wondering why He doesn’t do something.
The psalmist makes his request: Rise up and help us; rescue us!
They’re looking to God for what only God can do. They’re looking to God to do what He has done in the past. They believe, by faith, God will rescue them.
Why?
Is their faith just blind optimism? Wishful thinking? A sucker’s faith?
No. No, no. They are assured. Absolutely certain. They have no doubt that God will rise up and help. Why?
It’s the last phrase of the psalm:
Psalm 44:26 (NIV)
26 Rise up and help us;
rescue us because of your unfailing love.
Do you know what this is? This is hesed.
Dale Ralph Davis says: “It’s love, but it’s more. It’s loyal love. Steadfast love. Committed love. Love that will not let go. Love with crazy glue all over it.”
As Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it, hesed is: “God's never-stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.”
If this is who Yahweh is, if this is who the One True God is, then all is not hopeless. God will absolutely rise up and help, He will rescue…because of [His] unfailing love.
This is the psalmists’ plea to God.
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In his letter to the Romans, Paul builds a case for the church there in Rome. Based on the fact that they had been justified by God, had peace with God, and were made alive by God, Paul was teaching them that now, because of Jesus, God was eternally for them.
Because of what has been done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who believe.
Because of Jesus we know, if God is for us, no one and nothing can stand against us.
This has direct bearing on our suffering.
Paul asks the question we all ask, “What about trouble and hardship and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword? What about the kind of things the psalmist is going through?”
Can these things separate from God’s love? Does our experience of these things mean that God doesn’t love us? Does this mean that God has forgotten us or turned against us?
This is where Paul in Romans 8 quotes Psalm 44:22. He thinks back to Psalm 44, to the blunt mention of a time when God’s people felt as if God had forgotten them, rejected them, abandoned them.
I’d wager we all experience the feelings of Psalm 44 at some point in time. You might be in that place today. You’re frustrated with God, wondering what in the world God is doing.
After he quotes Psalm 44, Paul brings us right back to the truth. He says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
By “these things” Paul is referencing all the things the psalmist was dealing with.
He means all the times we feel God has forgotten us. He means the times we are brought down to the dust. The times we feel crushed by God. When we feel like we’ve been devoured by the enemy.
Even in those moments, we are not separated from the love of God.
When “these things” come into our lives and tempt us to lose confidence and faith in God, we must remember:
“These things” are an unavoidable part of life. They are part of life in a broken world.
“These things”, these Psalm 44-things, do not mean God is against us. God is for us, and if that’s true, nothing can stand against.
As those who belong to God through faith in Jesus, we will always prevail over these things. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. God will use the hardest, the most tragic moments for our good and for His glory.
Bad circumstances, hard circumstances never mean God has stopped loving us. He is eternally committed to us and nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from His love.
Paul takes a verse from Psalm 44, affirms its reality and truthfulness, and yet places it in the middle of inseparable love.
Inseparable love and severe suffering is quite the combination.
But that’s what Psalm 44 and Romans 8 are attempting to teach us.
Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from His unfailing love.
Even when we can’t see what God is doing, even when we don’t understand, we can cling to what’s true generation after generation: God’s unfailing love.