Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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I can't tell you guys many times I've asked the question.
There have been a few times in my life where I have been stuck in the first two verses of Psalm 13, asking over and over and over again: “How long?”
This is not the “how long” screamed from the back seat of the car from the child wondering “are we there yet?”
This is not the “how long” accompanied by the growling belly of the hungry asking when dinner will be ready.
This is the “how long” of the person questioning God, looking for God, wrestling with God, wondering why God would allow all this to be.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve asked this “how long” we find in Psalm 13.
David asks “how long” four times in two short verses—“how long, how long, how long, how long?”
The questions that David asks are questions that we have, no doubt, asked; even if we haven’t verbalized them, they are our questions.
In fact, I’ve said many times: “This is my psalm.”
In verses 1-2 of this great Psalm, David asks,
Boy, he’s honest.
He’s direct.
He’s open and clear.
He gets right to the point with the Lord.
The first “how long” is so important.
DAVID ENGAGES WITH THE COVENANT GOD
You’ll notice the word LORD in all capital letters.
We’ve seen this before (all over the OT; the Psalms are riddled with it).
This—LORD—is the tetragrammaton, the four letter designation of the Lord’s covenant, personal name: YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah.
This is the name God chose as His personal name by which He related to His chosen, covenant people.
It was the name Adam knew from the beginning.
It was the name God used when He revealed Himself to Abram, promising redemption and a nation.
This name was used when God explained His purposes to Moses as “I AM who I AM.”
You see, this is significant; this is not sermon fodder, sermon filler.
Allow your imagination to place you in David’s sandals at the worst moment of his life, whatever that might be.
He’s hurt, he’s angry, he’s outraged.
And he’s asking, “How long, how long, how long, how long?”—this, likely with some anger and attitude.
David asks “how long” and adds to the end of his first “how long” a “Yahweh”.
“How long, LORD?”
David uses the personal name of the Lord, here.
You see, the faithful continue to engage with the Covenant LORD through the good and bad.
Whatever the situation, he is calling on the God of his fathers; he’s remembering the covenant God has made; he’s reminding himself (and possibly reminding God) of the covenant that was made.
David’s faith—even in the muddy waters of life—enables him to conclude that his welfare rested in the hand of God; that the Lord Yahweh was concerned about him.
“How long, Yahweh?
Hmmm?
Remember me?
I’m your people!
Are you going to forget me forever?”
David questions the Lord.
How dare he question the Lord?
I think this—questioning God—is one of the moods of faith.
Throughout the Bible, men and women of faith have questioned God—from Abraham and Sarah to Moses to Hannah to Job and David and Habakkuk; and many more whose questioning isn’t recorded here.
Why, you ask, do I think that questioning God is okay and even proper?
It’s right here in Psalm 13.
Look at the heading under Psalm 13—For the director of music.
A psalm of David.
David wrote this song, this psalm for the director of music.
This means what you think it means.
This song was for the gathered assembly of the Lord’s people to sing.
In worship.
Together.
Can you imagine?
100, 200 faithful Israelites singing “How long, Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?”
It doesn’t sound much like a song that we’d sing in church; and yet we know that the Old Testament people of God sang this song—it was in the Psalms, the Psalter: their hymnbook.
“Our opening hymn this morning is Hymn #13—How Long, Lord?”
Questioning God is an important part of faith for the faithful.
It’s good that David is questioning God.
It’s equally as important that David remembers God’s covenant promises.
All the while David questions God, he remembers that He is the Lord; He is Yahweh.
David finds himself in a dark, dark place.
He is in deep distress regarding his relationship with God, his own emotions, his enemies.
Every corner of his life is touched by darkness and depression and sadness.
He is low, low, low.
Not too many years ago I was as low as I could get—personally, financially, emotionally, spiritually.
I was low, low, low.
I was 23 years old: jobless and almost completely broke.
I had $6 to my name, you might remember the title of the book I almost wrote: I Have $6: The Heartbreaking Tale of a Young, Devastatingly Handsome, Out-of-Work Pastor.
I had resigned my first full-time ministry and sunk into a pit of deep, deep darkness.
I could say, without much melodrama, along with the author of Psalm 88, “Darkness is my closest friend.”
My hopes and dreams of being something special, someone important were dashed not two years after college.
I found myself wallowing in self-despair.
I had a number of people reach out to me—friends, really good friends, college professors, the president of my college, pastors, loved ones—but this, to no avail.
There I was, stuck.
Depressed.
I’m not sure I ever got quite to the point of being suicidal, but I might have been close.
And then, it just kept piling on.
My hometown (and my childhood along with it) was wiped off the map by one of the largest tornadoes on record.
My dad’s cancer kept advancing, to the point of surgery and chemo-induced mustache-less-ness (he didn’t really have any hair to loose, but his mustache fell out).
I worked and worked and worked but there was always more month at the end of the money.
During this time, my life was all self-loathing and depression and anger and sin; I hurt absolutely everyone I loved.
Everyone.
My beautiful girlfriend (who is now, by the grace of God, my wife), my parents, my friends, my church family…
I wish there was an expression that would capture it all.
Something like, “when it rains, it pours…”
It was just so much.
And it just kept on coming, one thing right after another, beating me down, wave after wave, over and over…
Like David, I found myself in a whole bundle of trouble—feeling as if God was absent, dealing with my feelings and sorrow, believing that my enemies were winning the fight.
The thought and the feeling that God must be absent, well, that was the worst feeling of all.
I think David and I probably felt some similar emotion; we could both ask: “How long, Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?”
These questions were my questions—“How long is this going to continue?
Here I am, ready and willing to serve you and yet all of this went so badly, and so quick.
What’s the deal, God?”
This is the idea of the hiddenness of God.
The consistent testimony of the Church down throughout the ages suggests that there are times when we feel the hiddenness of God.
That is, that God is withholding some level of practical help from us, His people.
And we don’t get it.
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