Sermon for June 28, 2020 (?? Minutes)

This morning I'll be reading Psalm 13 verses 1 through 6.

I'll be reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

Psalm 13 all 6 verses

This psalm was written by David,,, during one of the times in his life when he was going through a tough time and had questions for God. We have so much written about David and all of the struggles that he went through,,, so there are many psalms that David wrote during his lifetime,,, and this is one where he wonders if God has forgotten him.

Psalm 13

1 LORD, how long will You forget me? Forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

2 How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day?

How long will my enemy dominate me?

3 Consider me and answer, LORD my God.

Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death.

4 My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,”

and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance.

6 I will sing to the LORD because He has treated me generously.

God bless the reading and the hearing of your word this morning.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord,,, as we begin this morning,,, with everyone here today and all that are listening and watching by video,,, we ask that you open our ears to hear and our hearts and minds to receive the message that you have for us today,,, In Jesus' name I pray,,, Amen.

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The scripture this morning might be something that we have all felt at times,,, but it might be something that we won't want to admit to.

Once we became Christians,,, we have been bombarded with encouraging words that tell us to keep our faith,,, don't give up,,, and on and on!

I can't tell you how many sermons that I have preached this way,,, even though I've only been preaching every Sunday for two years now.

And,,, I can't tell you how many I have heard in the past,,, or now,,, since we can listen to so many online.

So,,, when we have all of these words given to us in this way,,, it doesn't seem right to question God about something going on in our life just because we don't understand it.

We should be able to get through whatever it is by just trusting God and going on without questions,,, right?

That's why the psalms are so comforting to us during times of doubt,,, trouble,,, questions,,, whatever might be bothering us.

I love the Psalms because they normally begin with some painful experience and,,, then,,, it ends with praise,,, to the One Who Is in control of everything.

And they are comforting to us because they show us that it's ok to have questions,,, doubts,,, fears,,, or whatever you want to question God about,,, as long as we continue with our reading long enough to see that even though these different writers all had their questions for God,,, they were always answered,,, or by faith they realized that they could carry on.

So lets look at this psalm this morning and see how it can help us in our walk with God this week.

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I've told you in other sermons how David is loved by God and how God loved David.

But we can see from the very beginning when David was chosen to lead Israel that it took several years of waiting,,, going through many trials during this time of waiting also,,, before this blessing came to be.

And,,, I told you at the beginning,,, there were many psalms written by David all throughout his life,,, during many different times of trouble that he went through.

During one of these troubling times,,, in the previous psalm,,, in Psalm 12,,, David found himself abandoned by his faithful friends and surrounded by many foes.

But here in Psalm 13,,, David felt abandoned by God himself,,, and it seems likely that only one was against him.

And,,, because David did not pray for the destruction of this enemy,,, it seems that he wrote this psalm,,, possibly,,, when he was on the run,,, either from Saul,,, found in 1 Samuel,,, or,,, from his son Absalom,,, found in 2 Samuel.

So, the setting for Psalm 13 is a time when David was running to save his life.

He was being pursued by either Saul or Absalom. He was in danger of death.

He was doing whatever he could to keep himself alive.

And what made all of this so disheartening is that David felt that God had abandoned him.

He felt a sense of despair.

The question is: How does one get rid of despair?

How does one recover the joy of the Lord?

Lets begin looking at these verses in verse 1 this morning.

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Verse 1 says:

1 LORD, how long will You forget me? Forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

David sees God at this moment,,, almost as if,,, He is someone who is against him.

It is always interesting to me that when the bad times come,,, we tend to shut out of our lives those that are the most important people to us.

And instead of trying to get help to go through the tough time,,, we tend to try to face it alone.

Sometimes,,, when the bad times come,,, many people,,, turn away from God,,, and get angry with God because they are experiencing a bad time.

They turn away from church,,, when church is the place that they really need to be.

They don’t call their best friends,,, instead,,, they tend to push them away.

David is feeling this type of pain,,, but instead of shutting himself off from God,,, he is pleading with God!

We can feel the anxiety coming from the words that he wrote every time that we read this.

We can feel the helplessness and the hurting question that this is for David.

And we can feel it so quickly because,,, probably,,, a lot of us have been there.

When I say that,,, I mean that a lot of us know this,,, feeling,,, because we have been in the same frame of mind that David was in during all of this!

We understand and we can identify,,, each of us,,, in our own way,,, with the feelings that David experienced.

That's what makes the psalms such a blessing to us!

They will connect us,,, through these written words,,, with someone who has experienced the same pain that we are feeling,,, the same questions that we might have,,, the same feelings of helplessness that we might have,,, the same feelings of being left alone that we might have,,, and on and on,,, whatever feeling we might have,,, there is usually a writer that had that same feeling!

So lets read on and see how David was able to deal with his feelings.

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Verse 2 says:

2 How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day?

How long will my enemy dominate me?

David continues with his pleading questions in this verse.

Four times in the first and second verses he pleads with God.

Four times he ask God,,, "How long"

The second verse in The New International Version expresses David’s cry this way, “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

You see,,, David’s thoughts and emotions were getting to him.

His mind was going over and over what was going on, and he was not getting any peace of mind.

Since this was going on day after day,,, he felt a sense of sorrow in his heart on top of this.

And in the last sentence where he says: How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

David is pleading because it appears like his enemies have been successful,,, even though they haven't captured him,,, his faith,,, maybe,,, was getting lower because of how long this was going on.

My Faithlife Study Bible says that it appears that David thought,,, that as the Righteous and Just Judge,,, God should not allow this to continue,,, He shouldn't allow his enemies to succeed.

This part reminds me of how we tend to feel when it seems like those that seem to live however they want to,,, in other words those that aren't Christians,,, can succeed when we as Christians aren't able to catch a break.

At the same time,,, I'm also reminded that Satan acts like he's winning all of the time,,, but we know from reading the Bible,,, that he doesn't.

That's why we need to do like David and keep God first in our life even if we don't understand and we have questions.

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Verse 3 says:

3 Consider me and answer, LORD my God.

Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death.

When David says: Consider me and answer, LORD my God.,,, he is saying - "I've prayed,,, please answer".

Also notice,,, that we can see that he is beginning to turn around and acknowledge that God is,,, his "God",,, and he is showing faith by asking God to answer him.

My Faithlife Study Bible says that the command to restore brightness to my eyes refers to the restoring of strength or health similar to Jonathan when he tasted the honey and his eyes were brightened in 1 Samuel 14:26.

It also says that David appears to think that death is imminent if God doesn't answer here.

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Verse 4 says:

4 My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,”

and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

It seems as if David is saying that his enemies have already won if God doesn't answer him and that they will be celebrating because they think that he has given up.

He wants God to know that his enemies think that he is down but he hasn't given up hope yet.

Look at the next verse.

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Verse 5 says: 5 But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance.

Now we can see that David is still trusting God and he is expecting deliverance.

Since God has been faithful and answered prayer in the past,,, David is expecting God to answer this time,,, and through faith,,, he is rejoicing now in anticipation of that answer!

That's what we need to be sure and remember anytime that we are having questions about whatever we are going through.

That's why a true relationship with God is so important.

It takes those memories,,, the times when God has been faithful in the past,,, to get us through the hard times.

And if your walk with God is in the early stages and you don't have those memories to lift you up,,, then others in our church family should be able to help you by using their own examples where God has been faithful to them and answered their prayer.

That's why attending a church that you love is so important,,, because it's that family atmosphere that can help you pull through something that you might not be able to on your own.

That's also why it is so satisfying to read and study the psalms,,, because these writers have been there,,, they know what it means to cry out to God in despair with no hope,,, but they also know that God is faithful and He will answer,,, even when it seemed so dark to them!

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Verse 6 says: 6 I will sing to the LORD because He has treated me generously.

John Wesley said that you can tell that even David's questions that he had at the beginning of the psalm indicated a degree of trust.

The dejected heart thinks that God has forgotten forever, but the trusting spirit turns the dark thought into a question.

He continues with this quote: "This song as it were casts up constantly lessening waves,,, until it becomes still as the sea when smooth as a mirror,,, and the only motion discernible at last is that of the joyous ripple of calm repose".

Once upon a time if I would have read this quote,,, I would have thought that he was talking about a pond or lake that doesn't have any boat traffic on it and a thrown rock has caused ripples to appear in the water and they eventually calm down,,, because until about 20 years ago I had never seen the ocean calm before.

As you can tell,,, those of you that have been out on the gulf a lot,,, I've never been very many times.

Once around 2000,,, I was invited to go and I was worried about getting seasick even though that had never happened before but I didn't know anything else to do but go and hope for the best.

Needless to say,,, the next morning when we arrived down there and launched their boat,,, the water was just as slick as ice.

Not a wave in sight.

What a welcome sight!

And it was,,, very calming for sure!

(14:52)

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We seen at the beginning that David seemed to be experiencing feelings of abandonment by God,,, despair,,, and the loss of joy of the Lord!

But we can see that by the end of this psalm that David's faith was what helped him to get through this tough time.

It was the memory that he had of times in the past that gave him the confidence that God would answer his prayer.

And that's what we need to remember as well,,, whenever we are struggling with something that we don't understand.

Remember that God has been faithful so many times in previous trials in our life,,, those in our church family,,, and the writers of so many psalms!

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So we need to remember this psalm and David's response by the end of it.

Remember to spend time in prayer,,, being sure that we aren't afraid to tell God exactly what we are feeling,,, but also being sure that we remember that God is faithful to help us if we remember to give Him that chance.

Also be sure that we have that relationship with God that's needed to get us through anything that comes along by being sure that Jesus is our Lord and Savior!

And if you haven't been Christians for very long,,, to not be afraid to seek out those in the church that might have experienced pain before and ask them how God was able to help them.

Spend time in the psalms if you are hurting,,, because in one of these many psalms,,, you will find comfort from reading about others that are hurting,,, but have their prayers answered by God in them.

Just like David did here by the end,,, of this psalm!

(16:34)

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