Please remain standing, if you will, for the reading of God's word from Psalm 13 to the choir master, the Psalm of David. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I've prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. This is the Word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. A few weeks ago, I noted how peculiar it is that the book of Psalms opens on such a steadily low note. Within the first fourteen Psalms, a whopping eight of them, that's more than half, are songs of grief and frustration, including the psalm before us today. What's up with that? Well, as Dale Ralph Davis and many others have noted, no sooner do we start down the journey of the Christian life than we are beset with troubles. No sooner do we set ourselves to worship God and put Christ first in our lives than we encounter afflictions, and illness, and trials, and difficulty, and outright opposition. It's almost as if the devil wants to stop us on our Christian journey before we even get started. Almost. Indeed, Psalm 34, 19 says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Jesus says in Matthew 16, 24, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. In Acts 15, 22, Paul taught the Christians of Antioch that it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of God. Thus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran minister under the Nazi regime, would write, when Jesus bids a man come to him, he bids him come and die. The point is this, if we are to arrive at the sweet richness that the gospel promises us, we must suffer first. If we are to rest beside still waters, we must first pass through the valley of the shadow of death. If we are to find deep and lasting joy in Christ, then we must become familiar with sorrow and grief and pain. That's what these opening Psalms are challenging us with. That's why they're so heavy, and why these sermons have been so heavy. It's because God's word is forcing us to come face to face with the reality that a path of faith is a path of difficulty. It's a path of struggle and not of ease. And we spend so much of our Christian journey trying to push that feeling to the edges. We spend so much of our days trying to focus on the positive and on the happy, and we push our grief to the edges. We push our anxieties down. We try to cover up the ugliness of the reality of the world that we live in so that we can just move forward with the day. And what God says is, no, you're not gonna be able to move forward if you ignore reality. You're not going to be able to grow if you suppress your griefs and your sorrows and your difficulties. And so we come to Psalm 13, and we'll consider the three stanzas of the psalm under the following headings. First, David's fatigue. Second, David's fear, and third, David's faith. David's fatigue, David's fear, and David's faith. Let's consider these together. First, David's fatigue. Psalm 13 opens with an exhausted cry, a cry with which we are all familiar. How long, God? How long does it have to be this way? David says four times, repeats in different ways, how long will you forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? As we've seen in Psalms 4 and 6 and 10, we see again here, there are times in the Christian life when it feels like God has abandoned us. I'm not actually asking for a show of hands, but how many of you have been there? There are times when God feels very, very far away, and like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. And what David shows us here, God shows us here, is this is not an aberrant, abnormal experience. It's normal and common to feel like God has forgotten you. And it's not because of who God is. God hasn't forgotten us. It's because of who we are and what our minds and emotions are inclined to feel. This is why David asks, God, where are you? Why can't I seem to reach you? I feel abandoned by you and left to myself. I'm alone with my grief and internal counsels. I feel like I'm spinning myself in circles and I need your help to get out, God, but I can't. As David describes his situation cut off from God's counsel, he feels left to his own. He describes a state of being entrapped by his own dark thoughts. He's worked himself into an anxious mess and he sees no way out. Have you ever been there? Where you know your thoughts are not true. Where you know the things that your mind and your anxieties are saying, well, we need to do this. You know those aren't the right path to go down, but you can't get away from them. Haven't you prayed and prayed for wisdom and been left alone with your own troubling thoughts? Haven't you lain awake at night asking God to ease your anxieties and soothe your concerns and let you sleep, but you remain sleepless? And you remain restless. The dark tape of your own psyche keeps playing over and over and over again. And whatever the cause of your particular dark season, many of us have uttered the cry, How long, O Lord? Why does this have to keep going on for so long? Why won't you answer me? In his commentary on this passage, James Montgomery Boyce comments, as a result of counseling people over more than two decades of my ministry, I'm convinced that a feeling of abandonment is far more common than it appears to be. Many people feel abandoned by others first, but ultimately also by God, which makes this a spiritual problem and not only a psychological one. Beuys continues, in the last chapter, I quoted the dying French atheist Voltaire, who said on his deathbed, I am abandoned by God and man. We're not surprised to hear an unbeliever say that. But if any of us should admit to those feelings, many of our friends would look askance at us, shake their heads, and wonder whether we are really Christians. Isn't that true? Isn't that the chief reason why you do not talk to other Christians about this or about many other problems? How good then to find that David does talk about it. He doesn't cover up his feelings. David tells it like it is. He feels abandoned by God and he says so. Well, if he says so, we can say so too. Indeed, my friends, What this journey through these first 14 Psalms have been teaching us is that the Christian journey is not for the faint of heart. It's not for the easily discouraged. It's not for those who want to walk the road ahead always happy, always cheerful, without any problems in life. No, the Christian journey is often grueling. It is often devastating, it is often filled with grief and despair. But despite what you may feel, you are not alone. Take Psalm 13 as David saying, me too. I get it. You're not the only person to feel this way. Indeed, some of the most influential saints have been men and women who struggled through very difficult seasons. Most of the greatest preachers you've ever heard of struggle with depression and anxiety. Most of our favorite hymns were written by men and women who suffered exquisite grief. They lost their children. They suffered physical difficulties. They struggled with their faith until the very end of their lives. The Christian race, friends, is not a quick sprint. It's a marathon. Sure, the Christian journey will take you up to grand mountain vistas where you see God's goodness and His glory and His grace, and it's amazing. But the Christian journey also takes you into valleys of deep and overwhelming darkness. It takes you across dry, endless deserts, long before it brings you besides still waters and green pastures. If you want to have endurance in the Christian life, my friends, What David is teaching us is that the first thing you need to do to have endurance is to be honest with yourself. Because when you're honest with yourself, you can be honest with God. And when you can be honest with God, he'll give you the help that you need. How can God meet you in the low places if you won't say, God, I'm in a low place? Now, he can, but it is God's ordinary way of doing business, to hear your prayers, to hear you say, God, this is who I am, where I am, and this is what I need. In this Psalm, David lets all of his ugly emotions out and he brings them to God in prayer. And you can do the same thing. You need to do the same thing. You need to get real with God if you want to see God get real with you. I'll say it this way. Friends, God wants your ugly. He wants your ugly thoughts. He wants your ugly emotions. He wants your ugly attitudes. He wants your ugly behaviors. He has a particular interest in your sins and sorrows. If you are struggling and grieving, you therefore have permission to struggle and grieve, even in church, even in worship. that brings us to the second stanza and second point, David's fear. The whole psalm is a prayer, but these verses bring us to David's heart. He brings three pleas and three reasons to God. He says, consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I've prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice, because I am shaken. First, let's consider David's three pleas here. What is he asking God to do? He prays first, consider. God, consider me. That means look at me. Pay attention to me. Even though he feels like God has abandoned him, he still prays, God, look at me. Look upon me. Consider my situation. He knows that God hears him even though he feels like God is not. I love what Dale Ralph Davis says about this prayer. He calls this the instinct of faith. He says, even when Yahweh seems to turn a deaf ear to us, a believer will simply keep coming back to him. It's almost a spiritual knee-jerk reaction. It's like Peter's response when Jesus asked Peter, are you guys gonna leave me too? And Peter says, where else can we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. The believer may feel like God has abandoned us, like God can't hear us, but where else can we go? Who else can we turn to for prayer but God? Even so, David prays, God, look at me. Please, just look at me. And then he prays, answer me. Now, David's not primarily asking for information here, as we sometimes do. You know, why, God? Why did it have to be this way? Why did they have to die? Why did this have to end? Why did I have to lose my job? We want answer to all the why questions. That's not what David's really getting at here. Because David is asking God to take action. And the Bible, especially the Old Testament, when God answers, it's not primarily with information, it's with action. When God answers, it's with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. David's problem is not merely cognitive. It's not as though if he has all the information, he'll be able to feel better. He wants God to do something. And what does David want God to do? He asked God to light up my eyes. He's praying, God, shine your light on me. Enlighten my spirit. Brighten my eyes, quicken my step. In Psalm 6, we saw the idea that grief and despair make a person's eyes look dark, sunken, hollow, old. Dark eyes is a sign both of physical illness and of spiritual and mental despair. David asks here for the opposite. Bright eyes communicates vigor and health and cheerfulness and optimism. He's saying, where my eyes are dark, make them bright. He's praying, God, let me see your light so that my eyes and spirit will shine once more. Brighten my spirit by shining light into the darkness of my life right now. Give me strength by revealing yourself to me. Because in your light, I will have light. Now, let's turn to consider David's rationale. These three pleas represent his appeal to God. He's pleading a case. Prayer is not only real and emotional. Prayer is also rational, and it engages our thoughts. David wants God to prevent his fears from coming true. So what is David fear? Well, first, David fears a type of death. He prays, light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest is a word we don't use much outside of the Bible. It means so that not. He was praying, light up my eyes so that I don't sleep the sleep of death. The Hebrew literally reads, so that I don't sleep the death. Now, David could be saying here that he is afraid of dying. But I find it odd that David leads with death, and then he goes to talk about his enemies being triumphant over him. Like, death would seem to be the climax. You don't get more final than that. So I get the sense that David is speaking more metaphorically and idiomatically. In modern English, we might say, I feel like I'm going to curl up in a ball and die. I feel like I might curl up into a ball and die. In other words, I think that David fears that his spirit might give out and he will become as good as dead. He might be afraid that he's becoming so depressed that he might not be able to get out of bed in the morning, that he might just give up on living. Some of us know what that feels like. But I want you to really notice here is that even though David leads with this fear of death, he's not primarily concerned about his personal health and well-being. Rather, he's primarily concerned with these enemies of his. What's that about? Well, it's about avoiding public shame and humiliation. Now, David's context and concern here is different than ours. He does not live in a psychological world. And he is not primarily concerned about the feeling of shame like we would be. You and I live in a world that defines well-being and personal strength therapeutically. We evaluate our personal standing and our wellbeing in terms of our mental health and emotional state. We feel like if we are good inside, then we can be good outside. But David's world is the opposite. He doesn't live in a therapeutic age. He doesn't live in a psychological world. He feels like if he's stable on the outside, he can be good inside. If we were in David's shoes, we'd probably schedule an appointment with our therapist and talk about our feelings. That's not what David wants to do. David lived in a social world, not a psychological world. He lived in a Middle Eastern world governed by rules of honor and shame. And he is more worried about his rivals and adversaries taking advantage of his weakened condition than he is about his personal embarrassment or feelings of depression. The issue is not how he feels. The issue is what people are gonna do. His physical and emotional health matter only as they are a liability in his society. Why is that? Well, because in an honor-shame society, any sign of failure, any sign of public weakness carries with it the risk of one's adversaries capitalizing on it and seizing the advantage to take power. to take your position in society. Honor-shame societies are based on hierarchies, social ladders. David's social capital and his physical safety were tied to his being recognized as an honored, capable member of society. And if David's honor and capability were shown to be weak. If they were attacked while he was physically and emotionally disabled, then he wouldn't be able to protect himself. He wouldn't be able to protect his honor. His stability was not his emotional state. but in his network of mutually supportive relationships. And if his honor was attacked, that network of supportive relationships would fragment and fracture. Thus David prays, answer me, lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. He prays, look at me, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. We might say, God, I don't want these people to think they have the upper hand. I'm vulnerable. And if my opponents realize that I'm weak, they're gonna seize power. They're eager to take advantage of any weakness that I can show. God, protect me. Lift me up from the funk that I find myself in and give me strength. Help me to do my work today. Help me to put on a good face for those around me. Now, we don't live in the same world that David did. We do live in a more psychological age. But some of us do live in a world where we have coworkers that have made themselves our rivals. Our work environment is more than just friendly competition, it's cutthroat. People are willing to tear us down so that they get the promotion. In the same way, business ownership and sales is cutthroat. Other companies are happy to magnify your personal weaknesses and your business's weaknesses to steal your clients. Isn't that the way of it? Maybe you've done it too. The political world is filled with this sort of gamesmanship. It's a stock and trade, a political advancement. An opponent shows weakness, a political opponent shows weakness, we're gonna capitalize that, we're gonna run smear campaigns, we're gonna try to minimize his support base, and when he loses, we're gonna carve up his territory for myself and my allies. Not all of us live in this world, but some of us do. But what we all share with David, what we all share with one another is a spiritual enemy. We all share an enemy who is eager to destroy us when we show the first sign of weakness. We all have an enemy who prowls around like a roaring and hungry lion seeking someone to devour. He is the devil, Satan. the accuser of the brethren, and like a lion stalking its prey, he likes to pick off people who are weak and sick and separated from the flock. The devil is the adversary of our souls. He will attack us when we are most weak, where we are most weak. And so we need to pray for God's protection just like David. As Jesus taught us, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. That brings us to the third stanza, third point, David's faith. Given all the weightiness of the Psalms, and of this Psalm in particular, it's vital that we see where David's prayer here concludes. In an exhausting, often discouraging Christian journey, where are we to go? How are we to move forward? David's answer, but I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Verse five begins with this contrasting conjunction, but. David means all that being said, in spite of all this, I have placed my faith in your steadfast love, O God. Here David brings us back to the covenant love of Yahweh God. Here we have that word that I referenced last week, hesed. In Exodus 34, following the whole golden calf affair, when Moses broke the stone tablets because Israel had broken God's covenant, When God threatened to wipe Israel out for their fickle idolatry, God revealed His character to Moses as a confirmation that He was going to keep His covenant and love an unlovable people. He said, I am Yahweh. Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, that is, Chesed, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love, that is, Chesed, for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. This is God's unique character. He is loyal, he is faithful, and he is true to sinful, forgetful, stubborn people. He is fully committed to us in his love for us. And so David reaches out by faith and holds to that revelation of God's character. In his weariness and discouragement, he falls on the bed of Jesus Christ. He grips God's love and he will not let go. Why? Because it is precisely God's love that will not let David go. David will not let go of God's love because God's love will not let David go. As we sing, a love that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee, I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine oceans depths its flow may richer, fuller be. Or in another hymn, oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me, underneath me. all around me is the current of thy love, leading onward, leading homeward to thy glorious rest above. Or in another, great is thy faithfulness. O God, my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Pay close attention to what's happening here, friends. David is confronting his subjective state with objective reality. He confronts his emotional experience with an exercise of biblically informed faith. He chooses to take his mind off of himself and his feelings and look at God. He lifts his gaze to a higher reality than his circumstances. He focuses on the God who is there and who loves him, and that is his security. Is it yours? That, my friends, leads David to worship. After expressing his confidence in God's steadfast love, he commits himself to worship that very God who loves him. He says, my heart will rejoice in your salvation, and I will sing to Yahweh because he has dealt bountifully with me. In verses 5 and 6, what David is saying is something akin to, I will and I must rejoice in your salvation. I will and I must sing to Yahweh. He's speaking a command to his own heart and mind. These verses represent a conscious effort on David's part to worship. Friends, when we're low and in the dumps, when we're wracked with grief and sorrow, we don't necessarily want to go to church, do we? We don't want to get dressed. We don't want to put on makeup and do our hair. We don't want to shower. We don't want to put on a happy face. We don't want to be asked a lot of questions. We really, really just kind of want to be left alone and stay by ourselves. But staying in bed on a Sunday morning, in your pajamas, by yourself, with your tears, is that going to lift your spirits? Is that going to give you hope? There's an appropriate place for grief, and some days, especially with the death of a loved one, all you can do, and the right thing to do, is stay in bed and grieve. But there comes a point where that becomes a prison cell. Friends, wallowing in our emotional despair is not going to restore our souls. But you know what will? Worship. We may not wanna go see God's people, we may not wanna sit through a sermon, we may not wanna sing, but that's precisely what we need to do. Because God has designed us for worship. And God has designed worship not for shiny, happy people all the time, but for crummy, messed up people. He has designed worship for sinners in need of a savior. for brokenhearted people who are in need of healing. That's why here at River, we aren't looking to send you away with positive vibes. We aren't looking to lift your spirits and give you a great worship experience so that you'll wanna come back next week. Rather, we wanna provide you with the opportunity to worship God where you really are. with all of who you are, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that means there may be Sundays where you leave and you feel sad, where you feel alone, where you feel heavy. Prince Jesus wants your good, your bad, and your ugly, and he wants you to bring it here to him when you worship. If you can't bring the difficult things of life to God in worship, where can you bring them? Where do they belong? Friends, there's simply no better path for the Christian to walk when he is weary and suffering than to go to God and worship, to bring the heavy things of life to him, because that's where you will meet God. Jesus says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. Jesus doesn't promise to be with you in your bed. He doesn't promise to be with you on the golf course. or on the lake. He promises to be with you when you are with His people. And in worship is where you will hear God's words spoken to you. And God's words are chosen by His Spirit to minister to your soul where you are. They may not be the words that you want to hear. They may not be the words that you think you need, but God knows what you need better than you do. And he wants you in his presence. As we conclude, let me show you one last thing about worship. There's something peculiar that Christians do in worship that is unique and is particular to lift the spirits and enlighten the eyes. You know what that is? It's singing. Other religions chant. Muslims sing a call to prayer, but among all the religions of the world, Christians alone sing to God in worship. Indeed, since the days of the Old Testament, Christian worship has always been structured around music and song. We sing not only praises to God, though, We also sing our griefs to God. We not only confess our faith in song, we confess our sins in song, like we've done today. We sing not only because we are happy. We sing because we are heavy. In every season of life, we sing. In our particular challenge, in our particular hope, is that when all is dark, we fill our eyes with the light of the glory of Jesus Christ by singing together about him. And so we sing lyrics like, when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. 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. And finally, a hymn by William Cooper that just beautifully summarizes this last point, and I think the whole psalm. Sometimes the light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings. When comforts are declining, he grants the soul again a season of clear shining to cheer it after the rain. In holy contemplation, we sweetly then pursue the theme of God's salvation and find it ever new. Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say, let the unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may. Though vine nor fig tree neither their wanted fruit should bear, though all the field should wither, nor flocks or herds be there, yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice. For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice." Friends, let that be your song. Thank you for listening to this sermon from River Community Church in Prairieville, Louisiana. where you will always find biblical preaching, meaningful worship, and the equipping of disciples. For more information on River Community Church and its ministries, please visit rivercommunity.org.