Prayer Week 4-Language for Lament

Introduction

This morning we are going to end our “Let’s Talk” series, this journey through how we as believers should pray to God. And where we find ourselves this morning is in Psalm 77. We are ending our prayer series with a psalm of lament written by a man named Asaph. He wrote psalms 73-83

As a church, it’s so important that we remember how to lament or we learn how to lament! Why do I say that?

1. OT Scholars estimate that one third of the psalms are laments. How could a collection which includes so many complaints be considered praise?

I love psalms of lament because they reveal the truth of the raw reality of the common Christian experience: It’s not a journey of mountaintop experiences.

Lament is a passionate expression of sorrow and grief. An appeal to God based on confidence in His character. So what it does is it requires that we know something about God, so that we can then appeal to God about the thing that is not congruent to what He intended life to look like. And we have a lot of discomfort around that I believe.

Here’s the danger when we shy away from preaching on, teaching about, and discipling believers the art of lament...If we don’t do it then church becomes almost like this alternate reality because it doesn’t acknowledge the Monday through Saturday experience of our faith. Remember…the Christian experience isn’t a journey of mountaintop experiences.

What adds to the burden of those that are discouraged and going through a difficult season is the common and misguided notion that good Christians don’t get depressed. Any hint of depression around the church, and the cliches start to surface. “You just need to have more faith” or “Remember: Rejoice in the Lord always!” Or sometimes it comes off as a pep talk: “Come on, get up and get moving! Stop the pity party and pull yourself together! What will people think of God if they see you like this?” (I have personally said this one before in my own ignorance not knowing what I was communicating) And of course that simply pushes that feeling deeper into the hole and teaches the discouraged that unless they want to hear the cheap cliches again, they had better fake happiness. We’re not going to do that this morning. We say here at CR that it’s a messy family reunion every week, that in pastor Marcus’s words “we are all toe’ up from the flo’ up”. Here at CR we don’t want church to become a place where the fake smiles and the shallow “I’m doing fantastic” becomes the norm. But instead we want to embrace authentic relationships, which means we want you to come as you are: good, bad, AND ugly. Because we believe that the only thing that changes our mess is the supernatural power and presence of the God we come here to worship.

When we don’t fully understand how to properly lament, we can swing in two directions: on one side we can become closed off thinking that we aren’t allowed to be real and honest with God or others during times of difficulty. The other way we can swing is in the direction of complaining with no real expectation that God could deliver us from our circumstance or use our difficulty for good.

define the terms: In our usage the words complaint and lament are interchangeable. But in the Scripture, complaint and lament occur in different contexts and can be distinguished as different concepts. For example: In the wilderness, Israel complained to God about the lack of bread and meat and water. They assumed the worst about God: He wants to kill us! A complaint is an accusation against God that maligns His character, but lament is an appeal to God based on confidence in His character.

Lament in the Bible isn’t simply an outlet for our frustrations. Lament’s are a pleading with God to pay attention and act on their behalf.

We should read the Psalms like the early church did. When we read the Psalms you should see yourselves. The experience of the psalmist is your experience. And that is no accident. God put the Psalms in the Bible not only to call us to great heights of praise and worship, but also to comfort us in very dark seasons of discouragement and doubt.

Stand for the reading of God’s Word Psalm 77 “To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, “Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.” Then my spirit made a diligent search: “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.” I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”

We need to let this sink in: Asaph’s faith in God was shaken, and the resulting anxiety was keeping him awake at night, and this experience made it into the canon of Scripture. There’s a reason God preserved this psalm for us. As an example to understand the language of lament.

When life hits hard, go Godward.

Don’t miss what Asaph’s first response is. He He got honest with God. Don’t be ashamed to admit your inner turmoil, thinking that voicing your questions will offend God. He really wants to hear from you. Pour out your heart, loud or soft. He’s waiting to hear from you. For Asaph, this is an honest and anguished spiritual wrestling. And Asaph knew his Bible. Which means that we should too.

Asaph knew where to go because he had been there before the distress! When life hits hard, we will either be reactive or proactive.Trials don’t just test our faith, but it can also expose the lack there of too. So many times we are nearsighted with our time in the Word, in prayer, and in quiet solitude with Jesus in the present. What I mean by that is our time spent with the Lord isn’t just for encouragement in the present, but it’s equipping us for future moments too! Our time with the Lord doesn’t just satisfy us in the present but it sustains us in the trial! It doesn’t just fill us in the present but it gives us ammunition for the fight. It doesn’t just support us in the present but gives us strength for the future.

Here’s the reality: When tragedy hits, everyone goes somewhere, where do you go? Where do I turn when life is difficult?

life happens

life comes with ups and downs

life comes with deep hurt and heartache

This is the normal Christian experience! Trouble and hardships are inevitable but where we spend our time sowing in on the sunny days are where we are going to run to reap in the rainy days.

We will never “drift” into kingdom thinking (worship and prayer)…it’s intentional not haphazard. It’s active not passive. We pursue it and don’t just wait for it to happen.

Sprinkle of Application: Are you honest with God about the depths of your pain? How does bad news affect your relationship with God? Do you cry out TO Him or AVOID Him?

Sometimes you have to look backward for hope.

Asaph knew his Bible. He knew the covenants God had made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. He knew Israel’s history. He knew the holiness and power God had manifested. And so, in the midst of his disorientation and disillusionment and fear, Asaph looked backward for hope.

You have to:

Look backward in Scripture

unpack the character and nature of God

God provided the offspring of Abraham and Sarai

God delivered Joseph from slavery, death, and imprisonment.

God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt

God protected David from the hand of Saul

God delivered Jeremiah from persecution

God delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den

God delivered Shadrach, Mechach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace

God delivered the apostles from prison

God delivered Esther from a death wish

God gave healing to the bleeding woman

Character of God

God is holy

God is infinite

God is self sufficient-He has no needs

God is omnipotent- He is all powerful

God is omnipresent- He is present everywhere

God is omniscient- He knows everything

God is immutable- He never changes

God is sovereign-He orchestrates all things

God is good

God is wise

God is gracious

God is loving

God is just

God is merciful

God is truthful

God is faithful

God is glorious

Tell the story of the red sea: focus on the bleak nature of the outcome without the supernatural provision of God Himself. They were sheep ready to be slaughtered. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no way to defend themselves, in a vulnerable place.

In his crisis of faith, Asaph reminded himself how, repeatedly through history, those who hope in God have had to hope that God would keep his promises despite circumstances appearing hopeless. (Expound a little bit here, because this is what faith really looks like. Hoping in the midst of the uncertain future) There is an element of hope from a faith perspective that is one of EXPECTATION. In the midst of hopeless situations we expect God to be faithful. Take Abraham for example: He thought he was too old to have a child, and it seemed like a hopeless situation. Even when everything told him not to hope, he trusted in the promises of God. He had to hope in the unseen based on the character of the God making the promises. If you read all of Asaph’s psalms (73-83), you would see how many times he had to remember God’s faithfulness in the past to keep his faith in God’s promised future grace from failing in the present. THIS IS THE FIGHT OF FAITH. And its not just Scripture recollection and stories of faith in the Bible. But it’s also:

Looking back by personal testimony.

God hasn’t just given us the Scriptures to recall, but also our own personal testimony of God coming through. Whenever you feel yourself starting to go into the dark recesses of doubt, grab a pen, grab a notepad, go to a quiet place, and begin to list all the specific blessings that happened that day, that week, that month, or the whole year. Write down what God has done for you. List the top ten answers to prayer in your life. List out the people that love you. Remembering is a biblical prescription that is central to worship and fuels your faith in God for the future. When you mark God’s faithfulness in the past, you condition your weary heart with hope for tomorrow.

Old man strength: built by the time of life lived. Satan is scared of the believer who has trudged through the trenches holding onto the promise of hope in Christ. The saints who have walked the journey of peaks and valleys with the Lord. The ones who have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and came out the other side. That’s who we ought to aim to be. Those that have traversed the treacherous roads of pain and sorrow and trusted God all the more. Watching Him turn their situation for their good and His glory.

The truth is, we could go around this room for hours and tell stories of faith and deliverance for days revealing the goodness of God and encouraging the heart of everyone here.

Hope can be present even when your circumstances don’t change

The same man that brought his honest complaints in verses 1-9 is the same guy that is declaring God’s great and miraculous work in verses 13-20. So what changed? What made the difference? how did worship swallow up his doubt? How did boldness in God conquer over his fear? Verses 11 and 12 reveal that strategy. “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.” He said he will remember, meditate, and ponder on the wonders of God. But here’s a powerful truth thats implied but not said, that if we don’t slow down we might miss it. There was no indication that Asaph’s circumstances changed!

Psalm 77 was birthed during an anguished, sleep-deprived night. And it has no explicit resolution; no pretty bow of hopeful words to wrap it up. It just ends, “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” in verse 20. However, the hope is implicit: God, as horrible as this looks right now, as much as it appears that you have forgotten to be gracious, redemptive history tells me that you will still keep your promises and bring your deliverance.

The Red Sea example. God’s way isn’t to remove the water, it’s to go through the waters. The way OUT isn’t always AROUND but THROUGH.

In this psalm there is no indication that Asaph’s circumstances ever changed. But isn’t that the power of faith? Doesn’t that reveal the depth of our belief? Isn’t that the display of our trust in God?

“True trust doesn’t demand to see the path ahead; it rests securely in the hand of the One who leads.”

That’s one reason God has preserved this psalm and this experience: to help us not IF but WHEN our faith undergoes severe testing. Asaph provides us language for lament, and an example of what to do when anxiety is surging, and by all APPEARANCES it looks like God’s “promises are at an end for all time”.

Like Asaph, our horrible moment might make it appear like God isn’t being or won’t be faithful to His promises, fueling sleepless nights of anxious praying and pondering. Like Asaph, we can pour out our heart to God with profound candor during these moments. Like Asaph, we can remember God’s faithfulness in the past to keep our faith in God’s future grace from failing in the present. And like Asaph, we might not quickly receive comfort we long for, but we fight for it with all our might.

We fight for delight.

Explain Horatio Spafford and the writing of “It Is Well With My Soul”.

There was a man named Horatio Spafford who was a believer in Chicago during the 1800’s. He was pretty close friends with D.L. Moody. He invested heavily in real estate along Lake Michigan’s shoreline, and the Chicago Fire of 1871 wiped out his entire fortune. And I forgot to mention that his son died shortly before this event from Scarlet Fever. After these events he decided to take his wife and daughters to get away on a trip to Europe in 1873. In November of that year, due to unexpected last-minute business developments, he had to remain in Chicago, but sent his wife and four daughters ahead as scheduled. He was expected to follow a few days after them. On November 22 an English ship struck the boat his family was on, and it sank in 12 minutes. When the survivors finally landed in Wales, His wife sent a message to him saying “Saved alone.” He immediately left to join his wife. And this hymn that I am about to read you is said to have been peened by Horatio as he approached the area of the ocean thought to be where the ship carrying his daughters had sunk.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Land The Plane

I’m thankful that the Lord has given us the language for lament. He shows us that we must run to Him and get honest with Him about how we are feeling, call upon His character in the midst of the storms of life, remember His great and mighty deeds that He has done throughout Scripture and throughout our own lives, and even when things don’t change when we want them to…as we fix our eyes upon God our trials find their proper place. At the feet of the throne of the one who can change them.

And that’s where I am calling you right now. All who are weary, distressed, and discouraged by the circumstances in your life right now. All of you who are like Asaph, questioning God’s goodness, His grace, and the unchanging nature of His character. The Word of God begs response. If your in the midst of a really hard season of life right now I want you to do the hard thing right now and bring your pain to God, come bow your knee before the King and get honest with Him. Allow other saints to pray over you.