Psalm 30

Intro:

Begin by praising father’s for making church a priority.

As a father and parent part of your job is to simply teach your kids how to be normal citizens of earth

Right?

Like, if you want to be accepted into society, if you want to have friends, if you want to contribute to the world here are the things you do and the things you don’t do

For example: the other day we had some friends over and we had dinner and it was starting to get late, it was dark out right and my 4 year old came into the room and said, “are you going to leave soon?”

Now my 8 year old just moments before came out and said “I don’t mean to be rude but when are you leaving?”

And so it’s just the little things right.

And as a parent you kind of just learn that everything is a teaching moment

And so we talked about why that is inappropriate. How we want to make people feel welcomed at our home not like we want them to leave

Another big one is manners, I feel like I’m always following my kids interaction with another human with, what do you say?

say please, say thank you right?

But the reality is, these things don’t come natural to us.

If they did I would never have to teach my kids any of it

But I do. I have to teach my kids how to be thankful, why we are thankful, who we are thankful too

But this isn’t just a kid thing, apparently this doesn’t come natural even as we get older.

Because God, our Father, has to continually remind us as well

One thing that I think we do realize as we get older, is to be thankful for things we were never thankful for before

It often takes a long time to be truly grateful for how hard our parents worked, how many sacrifices they made, how they tried to be good parents even if they didn’t know how.

And often it take becoming a parent to elevate your gratefulness for your parents

Why? Because your perspective changes

Perspective can certainly increase our thanksgiving

And that in many ways is the heart of Psalm 30.

In this Psalm this morning, David the author, finds himself on the other side of suffering.

And on that other side, he has gained some new perspective

And that new perspective has given him a new sense of gratitude for things he can see more clearly than he ever did before.

And so what we should see is that suffering and grief helps David realize that God will often humble us with momentary grief so that he might exalt us with eternal gladness.

Psalm 30 NIV

A psalm. A song. For the dedication of the temple. Of David. 1 I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. 2 Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. 3 You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. 4 Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. 5 For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. 6 When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.” 7 Lord, when you favored me, you made my royal mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed. 8 To you, Lord, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: 9 “What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? 10 Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me; Lord, be my help.” 11 You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.

pray

If you were here for our Jonah series and specifically with us in More class during that we talked a lot about the different imagery the OT authors use to signify different things.

One of those we saw in Jonah is the use of descent language to signify heading to the underworld or toward death

Here we see “out of the depths” from David in verse 1

This signifies to the reader that David had a near death experience

And so when he states that you Lord lifted me out, he’s giving a picture of someone in a pit left to die and left alone and the Lord lifting him up and out being his salvation

This is one of the reasons the Psalms are so good

Because many of us have felt this same way

Like we’ve fallen in a pit that is so deep

One that makes us feel so isolated

As if no one can hear us, or rescue us

And in those moments, what do we do?

Well, David did the only thing he could do: he cried to the Lord for help

And here’s where I want to encourage us this morning

This is the proper response and when you do, the Lord hears you

He is with you

Today as we celebrate Father’s Day, like any good Father, His desire is for you is to never have to be alone and hurt like that

I want to remind us of something: Christianity is not primarily a religion

It’s not primarily a set of rules to follow

It’s not primarily a list of to do’s and don’t’s

It is primarily about a Father who loves His children

And when we begin to box in our faith just around rules, regulations, things to do and not to do, we miss the heart of God and we miss out on so much and I could even argue, you might miss out on everything

It’s been a difficult few weeks for my family.

We lost Dorie’s grandmother a few weeks ago and this past week we lost her grandfather

Their legacy

All that to say, this week has been kind of crazy and I was behind on some things and so Friday morning I was laying on the couch getting ready and Essie came out

Im literally studying and writing my sermon

She climbs in my lap

And as the children of God it is often in seasons of suffering that we learn more about the heart of God, if we allow it to

And this is exactly what happens with David

He cries out, the Lord hears his cry, responds with mercy, heals him, lifts him up, and saves him

And how does David respond to that salvation,

Praise!

And not just praise but an invitations for all people to join in and praise this redeeming God with him.

Why? because God’s “anger lasts only a moment but his favor a lifetime.”

“Weeping may come for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

Only God could turn weeping into rejoicing and that is a reason to praise

And so verses 1-5 serve as a pretty clear roadmap to seasons of suffering

We suffer, we cry out/pray, God delivers, and we praise.

But those verses only give part of the story

vs 6-12 give the other side of the same story

These two accounts complement each other

So, now David tells the same story again but with greater detail

How I communicate and expect others to communicate to me. Telling Dorie something I was excited about. My lack of details, Dorie’s search of details

This could be like me telling the story in vs 1-5 (everything you really need to know, the facts, but it’s lacking some details)

and my wife telling the same story with greater detail, more insight, in vs 6-12

in vs 6 David says

Psalm 30:6 NIV

6 When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.”

That is usually what you say right before you are shaken

A statement of arrogance

David’s position and prosperity had led him to a state of arrogance

which led him to sinful self confidence

He feels invincible

And he is remembering where the blessings came from and why they came in the first place

And the Lord hides His face, David goes from feeling invincible to terrified in a moment

And so what can be learned here?

That God, in His love as our heavenly Father, often disciplines His children for their own good

God afflicted David with momentary affliction as discipline for his self-reliance

And God will make us experience troubles in order to humble us and bring us back to himself.

But what we can be certain of, even in the midst of trouble and discipline is that all of it is for our good.

God’s heart in these moments is still kind, his motives pure, his purposes good

And it is His overwhelming continual and eternal love that helps us navigate the moments of discipline

As a father of my children it is my responsibility to discipline my children when needed. It isn’t fun to do, I don’t enjoy it, but most of my discipline is for my kids protection and even as a sinful man my desire is their good. Now, because of my relationship with my children, although they may not be able to verbalize this right now, they know that my love for them is what drives most of my actions toward them. Now I am imperfect, and I respond in sin, and with wrong motives and intent often. But at the end of the day, I love my children deeply and would do anything for them to know that.

If I only disciplined and never loved then they would question that. But if I show them love and even learned how to show love in the midst of discipline then there would leave no doubt in their minds

Now, imagine the heart of a perfect Father

We have a lot of good dads in this room, but imagine a perfect one, who has never done any wrong, who always does what is best and right by His kids

This is what we have in the Lord

A good and perfect father who lovingly will cause suffering to teach and draw us back to Himself

And in order for us to walk faithfully through those seasons it is important that we see God’s purpose in them

And thankfully, Psalm 30 helps us see that as well

A few truths for us to remember:

The God who humbles is the God who also exalts

The God who gives troubles is also the God who revives

The God who disciplines is also the God who redeems and restores

This is His goal all along. To exalt, revive, bring to life, save, redeem, restore us

But He knows that, that often takes suffering and discipline to get us there

But this remains true no matter what:

The proper response in the midst of grief or gladness is to give thanks

Thanksgiving really is the heart cry of this Psalm

Psalm 30:11–12 NIV

11 You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.

How quickly does doubt, fear, anger toward God set in when life doesn’t go our way

Psalm 30 helps remind us that we must give thanks for both good and bad seasons because we can trust God is behind both and is working them out for our good.

I also want to clarify something here.

I believe there are different reasons for suffering

And so I don’t want us to just think that our suffering is always God trying to teach us a lesson

It’s not His way to brutally save us right and so there are different types of suffering

And there is probably a lot of ways you can break this up but in the broadest view here I believe there is personal sin suffering, wordly sin suffering, and righteous suffering.

David is speaking primarily here about personal sin suffering

This is suffering because of sin that you’ve committed.

This is discipline

And this is where I would start when trying to decipher

So often, we miss and skip this step

We jump immediately to, well the devil is trying to get me so he’s attacking me

But it’s really just that you made some dumb decisions and now you are paying for it

The next is worldly sin suffering

This is the suffering we endure because we live in a sinful and fallen world

Look the world is broken

When sin entered the world it had effects that we are still feeling today

Then there is righteous suffering

This is spiritual warfare because of your faith

this is ridicule, tribulation, and suffering because of your faith in Jesus

Now, the end result should be the same

Praise and thanksgiving to the Lord

But the process is different

And I believe that is pretty individualized so I dont want to give a regimented process for that but what I do want to do is…

help us be aware of the types of suffering so that we mourn and respond accordingly

But remember the purpose and remember the heart of God

Wren falling off the bed when she was little

Racing to her