Psalm 6 beginning in verse 1 and going down to the end of the psalm. O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your hot displeasure. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled, but you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver me. Oh, save me for your mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance of you. In the grave, who will give you thanks? I am weary with my groaning. All night I make my bed swim. I drench my couch with my tears. My eyes waste away because of grief. It grows old because of all my enemies. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled. Let them turn back and be ashamed suddenly. Please pray with me. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your spirit. And above all, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who embodies this psalm so perfectly. And we pray that as we study it and sing it in unison with him, that you would teach us to move from a place of despair to a place of hope in you. as Christ did so many times in his life here on earth. And it is in his name that we pray. Amen. Why do some musicians become popular when others do not? Among the many reasons that could be listed to explain this phenomenon, one prominent one is this. Some musicians possess a keen ability that enables them to give profound expression to widely felt, thought, and experienced realities. For example, the Rolling Stones song, I Can't Get No Satisfaction, encapsulated and gave expression to the reality so many young and old people in that generation, and ours, knew in their bones to be true, that no matter how hard you try and try and try, you can't get no satisfaction. And this anecdote serves a point. Just as we like to quote men who said it best when we can say it no better, so also we love to sing with those who sung it best. Taking their words and making them our own because the reality in forming their words corresponds to ours. We love to sing with men who give a poetic and a public voice to what we previously thought was merely our own private experience, thought, or belief concerning reality. And for centuries, Christians have found the psalms to be songs that so perfectly encapsulate and beautifully express the big and small, low and high experiences, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that define and redefine reality in one's walk with the Lord. And tonight we take up one of those psalms, Psalm 6. Psalm 6 gives expression to the reality of reversal. and fills out our understanding of what a reversal is. Now we all know what a reversal is and have likely experienced several in our own lives. For me, it's always been at a sporting event. One team has the other team on the ropes and is about to administer the final blow that seals the deal, ices the cake, but then, all of a sudden, the reversal happens. An interception returned for a touchdown. Grand slam home run off the ace pitcher. A steal leading to a three-point shot and a foul. In a moment, the whole situation is flipped on its head and a new reality begins to emerge. In verses two through three, David says that his bones and his soul are greatly troubled. Yet in verse 10, he confidently asserts that it is his enemies that will be ashamed and greatly troubled. In verse three, David cries out, how long, oh Lord? Yet in verse 10, he confidently asserts that his enemies will be ashamed suddenly, or in a moment, as if the Lord will now act instantaneously. In verses one through two, David is fearful of God rejecting and forsaking him. Yet that fear turns to a confidence of God's reception and continual presence in verse nine. God will receive my prayer. Thus, David experiences something of a reversal. And this psalm becomes instructive for us on how we, in our walk with the Lord, can move from a place of despair, as David finds himself in the beginning of this psalm, to a place where our hope is ever in the Lord. You notice in the psalm that David never actually receives his answer, and yet he is confident at the end of the psalm that the Lord has heard his prayer and that is enough. The reversal has occurred. He has moved from a place of despair in himself to a place of hope in the Lord. David's pleas and the Lord's reception of those pleas form the fulcrum upon which that reversal occurs. So let's look at David's pleas, his first plea, verse one. This is a plea every single child can relate to in experience and in feeling. The feeling of horror that comes over you when you know you've done something wrong and the wrong has become known or manifest to your parents. You begin to cringe and cower inside, knowing they'll correct you or they'll rebuke you, punish you. And the only hope remains is that they won't rebuke you in the midst of their anger. When you see it flare up at what you've done, you hope that cooler heads will prevail and mercy will be remembered. And David depicts the Lord's displeasure as being hot, a heat that dries up his bones and sucks his life away. And the reason David gives for the Lord to heed his plea to have mercy is kind of odd. He says, I am weak. My soul and my bones, in this translation it says troubled. A better translation is terrified. It's a picture of shaking. He cannot even keep the most inward parts of himself still. The thought of God's anger and displeasure upon him, the heat of God's wrath is making David tremble and he can't be still. And yet he says, because of my weakness, because my soul and my bones are troubled, are terrified, show mercy. David is evoking a truth that he knows about the character of God and a truth which Psalm 103 aptly expresses in verses 8 through 14. It says the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive or rebuke us, nor will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him as far as the east is from the west. So far has he removed our transgressions from us as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. Four, he knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust. David is enshrining in song a beautiful truth that we are called to sing along with him. And that truth is this. our weakness and our frailty, both in failing God in the first place and in being able to stand up to his rebuke afterwards, actually become a legitimate reason why God ought to show mercy towards us. We are weak, our bones are terrified, and we fear the Lord because of his hot displeasure towards us. And this becomes our plea, that the Lord would remember our weakness. And that is the truth that Psalm 103 gets at. He remembers that we are but dust. He remembers our frame, and therefore, he does not always strive with us. His anger is not always known. And then the second plea at the end of verse three and then going into verse five. But you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver me, O save me for your mercy's sake. This is an interesting paradox in feeling that children often get when they've wronged their parents and that we often get when we have wronged the Lord. There is in one sense a desire for the Lord not to be close because we fear his anger, and yet at the very same time, there is a desire to be closer than ever. David does not want God to visit him in anger, yet he desperately wants God to be close nevertheless. How long, O Lord, return and deliver me. Save me for your mercy's sake. Now the reason David gives for God to answer this plea may at first seem arrogant. For in death there is no remembrance of you. In the grave, who will give you thanks? David is not saying, you should answer my plea, O Lord, because I'm the sweet psalmist of Israel. If you kill me, who else is gonna write these beautiful songs and worship you with such skill in the way that I do? Rather, David is equating the very purpose and value of his life on this earth with praising God. To David, praising God is the definition of life. and that purpose and value finds an end if he goes down to the grave. The grave is not the realm of life and praise because, as Jesus would later prove the resurrection to the scribes, God is God of the living and not of the dead. David's plea betrays this remarkable truth. There is a great purpose to the lives of God's people. And that purpose is not achieved by us remaining in the grave under God's judgment for our sin. Likewise, it is not achieved in us remaining in our despair because of our sin. Just as Israel was called out of Egypt in order that they might worship the Lord of life, just as Jesus was called out of the grave that all nations might praise him and he would receive their worship, so also God has called us out of sin. out of death, out of despair, that we might sing his praises. There is a purpose behind the salvation that the Lord grants, and that purpose is not that we then shrink back into despair, but that we go forward with the mercy of the Lord to proclaim his praise. As the psalmist says in another psalm, there is forgiveness with you, O Lord, that men might fear your name. Reverence, respect, honor it, praise and glorify it. And then David goes on in verses six through seven to further describe his misery, picking up that first plea upon his weakness. He talks about his spirit being dried up. He pictures his tears so plentiful that his couch has now become a swimming pool and his eyes are now consumed with grief. And yet despite all the tears, it has now come to an end and he is like a desiccated man like a river that has run dry. There's no more tears to be poured out before the Lord, and yet no answer has come. Not only has no answer come, but the Lord seems farther away than he ever has. And in contrast with the Lord being far away, David talks both in verse eight and before of his enemies being imminent, closer. Imagine a child who has lost sight of his parents in a public place and he's quickly scanning and searching for them, looking intently with his eyes to see if they'll appear again. And the more, the longer he looks and the more he sees that they are not reappearing, the more despair he sinks into. And you can imagine his eyes are getting bigger and bigger and yet no relief comes. That is the picture that David is in here. His enemies are closing in on him. He is looking for the Lord intently, waiting upon him, calling upon him, and yet no answer comes. And he is sinking deeper and deeper into despair. Paul, in his epistle, talks about the Psalms as the words of Christ. And truly, the example of Christ's life fill out the meaning behind this psalm. Remember, when Christ goes to the cross, the contrast between those who forsake him and those who draw near is made evident by all four gospel writers. His disciples forsake him. His close friend Judas betrays him. His God forsakes him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And while all those who should be close to him in his time of trial have gone far away because of the sin that he is bearing, his enemies are drawing ever closer and closer. Herod and Pilate, the Romans and the Jews who wish to crucify him. And that is the picture here. Because of sin, David now finds God far away and his enemies drawing ever closer. And yet, right in the end of the psalm, in verse eight, he confidently commands, depart from me all you workers of iniquity. For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Based on the character of God and God's acts in times past, David is confident that the Lord not only has heard but will act and that the Lord will be closer to David once again, even more closer than his enemies currently are. And for us, this becomes our song as well in times of despair. We may know that even as enemies both sin within and enemies from without, as they draw closer, our hope is that the Lord has heard our plea. Our plea to him that we are weak, that he remember our frame, that he not deal with us in his hot displeasure and anger, and that he would work perfectly the purpose for which he has called us to himself, that we might rejoice in the light of life, that the judgment of sin would pass, and that we might praise him in the morning. And this is reflected in both Psalms 37 and 66. Psalm 37, the righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones, the very bones that were terrified earlier in this psalm, and not one of them is broken. Psalm 66, 17, and 20, come and hear all you who fear God and I will declare what he has done for my soul. Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me. And 1 John 5, 14 through 15 reflects, now this is the confidence that we have in Him. The confidence that moves us from despair in ourselves and hope in the Lord. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. In this psalm, David has not received the answer to his petitions. For all we know, his enemies are still drawing closer, and yet his confidence is the confidence that John speaks about in his epistle to us. We know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him if he hears us. just as the Lord, as He entrusted His Spirit on the cross three days later, was then raised from the grave, conquering His enemies, conquering death, and becoming Lord of the world. And so we have been given these pleas in Psalm 6 in times of despair to sing with the Lord Jesus Christ out of despair into the hope of God's new reality that he brings even in spite of our weakness and our failures. Because we are weak. Because we do fail. And yet his purposes for us continue and remain. As Paul says in Romans eight, all things work together for those who are called by God and according to his purpose. So you pray with me. Father, there are times in our life and we thank you that there are Psalms in the Psalter that we can sing during those times where we feel this very reality pressing upon us that we have sinned against you or we have failed you in some way and the horror and the anxiety and the dread has come upon us, that there's a division between us and you and that you are going to visit us in your anger and your hot displeasure, anger that we know that we cannot survive. And yet at the same time, we desire to you to be close in those times to heal as David prays. And yet you seem so far away because sin does separate us from you and our sin within and our enemies without draw ever closer. So we thank you for this psalm. We thank you that the Lord Jesus is ultimately the only one who truly went to the depths of the anguish of being forsaken by you into the darkness, his friends and his father forsaking him in order that we may never be forsaken by you. And so we take up the pleas of this psalm for some in the midst of their despair, even now, And we pray that you would remember our frame, that you would remember that we are weak. If you should count iniquity, who would stand, O Lord, and who can stand in the day of your anger? And so in remembering our weakness, show mercy and bring healing to bones that are terrified and that grow sick because of sin. And we also pray that you would fulfill the purpose with which you have called us out of, our life of sin leading to death, that despite our constant stumblings and failings, that you would continue to fulfill the purpose and the work which you have begun, that Christ would indeed be the author and the finisher of our faith, and that you would help us pass through the judgment into resurrection life where we would praise you, help us all the more equate the value and the purpose of our lives with the praise of your name and the glory that we bring to you. And we thank you for the confidence that you give us, that you do hear our prayer and answer according to your will, and it is upon this that we may move from despair to hope, knowing that you hear us, and that we have the petitions we asked in due time. And so we pray that you would grant us patience and confidence in the midst of patience as we await for you to fulfill all your promises. And it is in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.