Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Let me remind you to prepare for the Lord’s Supper this Sunday during the Sunday AM service.

Friday, January 21st at 7pm, we’re going to show the movie American Gospel: Christ Alone in the auditorium.

Admittance is free, we’ll have free popcorn, and free drinks as well.

We’d love to have you here, please feel free to invite your friends and family.

As always, please continue worshiping the LORD through your giving.

To help you with your giving, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done through the offering box in the front of the room.

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and selecting giving in the menu bar.

Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Sermon

Introduction

It’s good to be back in the book of Psalms this evening as we continue in our series in Psalms.

As you know, we’ve been working verse-by-verse and line-by-line through one psalm at a time in order for us to get the author’s original intent and then be able to apply it to our lives today.

The beauty of the psalms is that each psalm is its own stand-alone passage, so, even though it’s been a few weeks since we last were in the book of Psalms, there isn’t a lot of material that we need to work through for us to get caught back up to where we are in the book of Psalms.

In fact, beyond just reminding us of the general purpose of the psalms and how they can be applied to our lives today, there really isn’t much more that we need to say before jumping into the text itself.

So, let me remind you of what the purpose of the book of Psalms is.

The book of Psalms isn’t a chronological account of any one particular event and it isn’t like the epistles in the New Testament that provide significant doctrinal teaching in a systematic way.

The book of psalms is unique, because it’s a compilation of poems written by various authors during different situations in their lives with the ultimate purpose of being utilized for the musical worship of the LORD.

The Israelites would utilize the book of psalms during their worship of the LORD.

In many ways, we can think of the psalms as an ancient collection of hymns.

However, it is definitely notable that despite modern worship music’s attempt to only sing songs of joy with upbeat tempos, the psalms aren’t always filled with joy and they weren’t always sang with upbeat tempos.

In fact, many of the psalms are somber reflections of terrible situations that were occuring in the author’s life and they’re filled with distress and discomfort.

Psalm 13, which is our psalm for this evening, is one of those psalms.

Psalm 13 isn’t a psalm filled with only joy, in fact, it’s clear that there’s desperation in the psalmist and in his writing.

Whatever he’s going through causes him great pain and suffering; and it wouldn’t be a leap to say that the psalmist is struggling with some amount of depression based on his melancholic attitude and hyperbolic questioning.

We know from the superscription, which says “to the choirmaster.

A psalm of David,” that it was originally meant to be sang and that it was written by David.

Beyond this, we don’t know much about the setting of the psalm itself.

We’re not certain of the exact time or location that the psalm was written and thus, we aren’t certain of what in David’s life precipitated the authorship of this psalm; however, like I’ve mentioned a handful of other times the general nature of the psalm gives us a wider application.

We can apply this psalm in more ways than if it were very specific in nature.

This psalm, you’ll see applies to anytime that we might experience depression, sorrow, struggle, and pain, which for most people, is more often than what they would admit.

Let’s read Psalm 13 together as we dig into God’s Word this evening.

As we study this passage, we’re going to look at it in three distinct parts.

And I think it’s simple to see the distinctions, at least in the ESV, because the ESV provides gaps between each one of these sections, but not only that, they’re distinct in what they say: (1) Lament over Distress (1-2), the psalmist poses a series of rhetorical questions towards God.

In doing so, he expresses great disdain and sorrow.

(2) Prayer for Deliverance (3-4), after the psalmist’s rhetorical questions, he turns to prayer for God to deliver him from his distress.

And (3) Confidence in the LORD and Praise for Salvation (5-6), ends the psalm with David showing confidence in the LORD and with David worshiping God.

What this psalm will show us is the proper response to great distress in life.

And while it might seem like a lot of our more recent psalms have focused on this theme or idea, the truth is that we all face more distress in life than what we typically would like to admit, and we all could use the remind to let our distress push us into prayer and praise of God.

Prayer for Illumination

Lament over Distress (1-2)

David starts this psalm with four rhetorical questions that all start with the same two words, how long?

I’m saying that they’re rhetorical, because its clear that David isn’t actually expecting God to respond to these questions with specific answers, though in vs. 3, he does ask God to answer him.

The questions in vss.

1-2 aren’t what he’s exactly asking God answers for in vs. 3, but we’ll get back to that when we reach vs. 3.

Vss.

1-2 gives us four questions that start with the two words how long?

And already, in those two words repeated, we can sense a sort of desperation in the psalmist’s words—he poses these questions and it seems as if everything that he’s suffering through are issues that he’s suffered through for quite some time.

A person doesn’t ask how long unless it’s something that he’s dealt with for a significant amount of time—when faced with trial and tribulation, the first response typically isn’t to ask God how long you’ll have to deal with that trial or tribulation.

That response typically doesn’t occur until that trial and tribulation has been faced for a significant amount of time.

For instance, perhaps you get into a car accident on your way home from work and the accident is severe enough that you’re injured and have to go to the emergency room.

When you first arrive in the ER, depending on the severity of the accident, you might not even be conscious, when we you do wake up and you’re alert for the first time in the hospital—you might experience some pain, some discomfort, or soreness.

Usually, the first day in the hospital, while not pleasant, isn’t that bad.

Even the second or third day might not be so bad.

However, the more days that you add to your stay in the hospital and the more time you spend having to deal with that injury while hospitalized, your mindset can shift.

Whereas as 2-3 days isn’t a big deal; 2-3 weeks can start causing you to wallow, it can cause depression, it can cause worry and concern.

Whereas a short stint in the hospital usually isn’t a big deal; a longer stint causes you to question whether you’re getting better, if you need more help, or if your life has changed permanently.

A longer stint in the hospital will cause you to ask how long?

Now, we know in Psalm 13, that David isn’t in the hospital, but he’s still facing a situation in which he poses that question multiple times.

He does expound on that question each time that he asks it, let’s take a look at each question.

I’m going to read each one to you, and then we’ll look at each one individually.

Vs. 1a, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?”—The first question clues us into something going on in David’s life in which he feels like God has forgotten him.

Now, of course, we know that God doesn’t forget his people, in fact, typically when the Bible talks about God forgetting anything, it’s usually to do with our sins when we genuinely repent.

However, the Bible, on occasion utilizes the idea of forgetting and remembering to talk about God’s giving and withholding of practical help—particularly in the Old Testament.

When God is called upon to remember his people in the Old Testament, it isn’t saying that God had cognitively forgotten about them, but that he isn’t helping them in the way that he usually does and it’s a call for God to help them again.

In Psalm 13:1, David is making the point that David is experiencing a time in which he feels that God has stopped helping him; stopped caring him; God has essentially forgotten David.

That causes David’s first crying out.

“How long, will you forget me forever?”

Vs. 1b, “How long will you hide your face from me?”—Then takes the same idea and amplifies it.

Not only does David feel as if God isn’t helping him; God isn’t caring for him; and that God has essentially forgotten him, David’s question concerning the face of God being hidden from him shows us the personal nature of what’s going on.

The Bible in 2 Chronicles 7:14, Psalm 24 and 105, and in various other texts talks about the upright seeking the face of God.

The concept might be a little unfamiliar to us today because we typically don’t talk in that way today, but the idea of seeking God’s face is to seek God’s presence.

It’s to seek his character and to desire him and in doing so, enter into the presence of God.

You can think of it like this, in able to see someone’s face clearly, in-person, you have to look directly into their face, thus, they’re looking directly at your face—there’s a level of intimacy.

David’s question of “how long will you hide your face from me?” Tells us that in that present situation David feels as if he isn’t even in God’s presence.

There are times when we feel the same way, typically it’s a result of sinful behavior, occasionally it’s a result of experiencing depression.

And judging by the questions that David poses here, it’s clear that he is facing some severe amounts of depression and he feels alone.

We can see that abundantly in the first question in vs. 2.

Vs. 2a, “How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”—David writes about the need of taking counsel in his soul and there’s actually a reason for it, but it isn’t seen clearly in the English translations.

In Hebrew, it’s clear that the reason why he’s taking counsel in his soul is because he’s suffering with great anxiety or anguish in his soul.

To take counsel in that sense means that he’s wresting with himself and his anxiety; the NIV translates this verse, “how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

And that is a good way to get the nuance of the Hebrew in mind.

David is at war within himself and he’s struggling with depression, anxiety, pain, and struggle.

This pain causes him to cry out again, “How long?”

The last how long?

statement comes at the end of vs. 2b, “How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”—now this could be taken in three ways.

It could mean that as a result of David being forgotten by God and out of the presence of God, he’s lost God’s favor and thus, his enemies are exalting over him or triumphing over him.

Or this can be taken conversely, that David’ feeling forgotten by God and feeling like he’s out of God’s favor and out of God’s favor is the result of his enemies exalting or triumphing over him.

Or it could be just another reason for David’s overarching feeling of dejection and depression—that he feels this way because he thinks that God has forgotten him and that he feels like God’s presence is hidden from him.

He thinks this way because he’s struggling with anxiety, depression, and pain and on top of that his enemies are exalting over him and triumphing over him.

I’m partial to the idea that he feels dejected and depressed because of all these different reasons in vs. 1-2 and I base that on the fact that it doesn’t say one is the reason for the other, but all four issues are all issues that he’s struggling with.

David is suffering tremendously in his inner being or his inner man.

Mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually, David is struggling.

And this deep struggle has caused him to cry out to God four times asking “how long?”

And in light of all the tremendous suffering that he’s facing in his inner being or inner man, we can expound on that question, just a bit.

How long will I suffer?

How long will I struggle?

How long will I feel dejecting?