[0:00] From there this morning, so Psalm 6, let's read together. It says, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.
[0:13] Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord, how long?
[0:26] Turn, O Lord, deliver my life. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of you. In Sheol, who will give you praise?
[0:37] I am weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows weak because of all my foes.
[0:50] Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled.
[1:03] They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. And as we come to God's word this morning, let's just pray together as we open God's word together. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word.
[1:15] We thank you for this Psalm of David, Father. Father, we thank you that we can read your word in our own language as well and that we can understand it. Lord, we just pray as we open your word this morning that you would help us to understand more and more.
[1:31] By your spirit, would you illuminate the words that we read this morning. Father, would you speak through me this morning with the words that I say be from you and be your words, Lord.
[1:42] Help us and change our lives through your word this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. We live in a world that's full of pain, full of distress, full of hearty, death, sorrow, disruption and corruption, don't we?
[2:00] We live in a hard and broken world and we've been reminded of that recently in recent events that have gone on, both here in Carragalline but also in passage in the last week. We know that this world is hard and it's broken.
[2:13] And in your personal lives, I'm sure that you felt that this world is hard, this world is broken. Maybe you're struggling with a physical illness or maybe even a sinful temptation or maybe you're mourning the loss of a loved one.
[2:28] But you know that this world is hard. And David knew that this world was hard. And when he wrote this Psalm of the Ment in Psalm 6, he knew that this world was hard.
[2:38] But there is still good news, even in this hard world, even in this difficult world, there is still good news. And that good news is that God invites us to cry out to him in the midst of our distress.
[2:55] God invites us to cry out to him in this broken world, in the midst of this distress. And he hears us. And that's what I want you to see today. I want you to see that you can cry out to the Lord in your distress and he will hear you.
[3:11] Cry out to the Lord in your distress and he will hear you. So as we come to this first section in Psalm 6, in verse 3, David mentions that he's greatly troubled.
[3:22] He says, my soul is also greatly troubled. So today, as we look at this first section, you're going to see that you can cry out to the Lord when you are greatly troubled. I'm going to read from verses 1 to 3 again.
[3:35] In verse 1 it says, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
[3:47] My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord, how long? David is greatly troubled. He is greatly troubled in this first section of the Psalm.
[4:00] But why is he greatly troubled? Well, in verse 1 we see that he pleads to the Lord not to rebuke him and not to discipline him. Not to rebuke him and not to discipline him. And one thing that we know is that God needs to rebuke and discipline his people only because of their imperfections.
[4:16] Only because of their sinful actions. Only because of sin in their lives. God needs to rebuke and discipline his people sometimes because of that. And David might be in the midst of that rebuke and discipline right now as he writes the Psalm.
[4:29] He might be feeling the weight of that. And we know that God rebukes or, well, he disciplines us as his people because of our sin. And he disciplines every single one of us in the same way that a loving father would discipline their child.
[4:42] But that discipline, it never feels good in the moment when we're being disciplined. And David knows that that discipline doesn't feel good in that moment.
[4:55] So as David's dealing with this sin problem, as he's dealing and going through this rebuke and this discipline from the Lord, he then starts to ask for God's grace. He needs God's grace in the midst of this discipline, in the midst of this difficulty, in the midst of this sin problem.
[5:11] Look at verse 2. Instead of saying, do not discipline and do not rebuke, he is now saying, do give grace and do heal. He is using more positive wording in the second verse.
[5:22] Do give grace and do heal me, Lord. Heal me from what? Well, he says that he's weak. He says that he is languishing. At least in my translation, he says languishing.
[5:35] I didn't know what that word meant. But essentially, languishing means like this, like just completely unable because of your weakness. You cannot move.
[5:46] You're just completely weak. It's like an exaggerated weakness. So in the midst of this weakness, David cries to the Lord to give him grace and help.
[5:57] David knows that even in this weakness, he can cry out to the Lord and God will give him grace. He has hope that God will give him grace. That's why he cries out to the Lord.
[6:09] But this weakness and this pain, it goes further than just this languishing word that he uses. He says, my bones are troubled and my soul also is greatly troubled. David is describing his entire being.
[6:20] His bones and his soul are completely troubled. They are completely broken. He is broken. He is weak. He is broken.
[6:31] This reminds me of like curling up in a ball, right? When you're so weak and you can't move and you curl up in a ball and you don't know what to do with yourself. But in that weakness, David cries out to God.
[6:45] He cries out to God. David's a man of God, isn't he? We know that throughout the Bible. David is a man of God and he has an understanding of God's grace. He knows that God's grace is the only thing that he needs to sustain him and help him when he's greatly troubled in this weakness.
[7:05] Maybe you, like me, have felt completely weak and broken because of your sin before. Because of a sin problem in your life.
[7:16] Maybe there's a sin issue in your life and you keep asking God for forgiveness. Maybe you even tell God, I'm not going to do that again. I won't turn back to that. But day after day, night after night, the same struggle comes back.
[7:30] Maybe you're struggling with self-control or anger. Maybe it's jealousy or gossip. Maybe you're struggling with a specific sin problem in your life. Does that sin problem make you weak?
[7:43] And do you ever try to get through that sin problem with your own strength? I think that's one of the urges that we, as humans, that's one of the things we kind of lean towards, is trying to get through our sin problems with our own strength.
[7:55] Don't we? We try to sort it all out ourselves. We try to be the problem solver. Right? I love flying. I love flying. I love traveling.
[8:06] I love going to other countries. I love seeing the world. But there's one part in flying that I don't like. And that part is the turbulence. And my brain goes straight to the worst thing that could possibly happen.
[8:20] The worst thing that could possibly happen would be if I heard, if we felt this turbulence, and I heard a massive loud noise, and then this alarm starts blaring, and then before we know it, we're plummeting towards the earth.
[8:34] And it's thrown back on my seat. Time freezes. Imagine if that was happening, right? Time freezes. You're thrown back on your seat. There's nothing you can do. But then your brain starts to go, how can I get out of this?
[8:47] How can I save myself? It would be quite ridiculous. Maybe I can crawl out onto the wing and steer the steering flaps to fix the plane.
[8:57] Or maybe I can get out to the engine and I can fix the problem that's going on. Maybe I could even walk up to the cockpit with no flying experience whatsoever and pull us out of this mess. That would be pretty ridiculous, wouldn't it?
[9:10] It would be pretty ridiculous. Now the only person that you could turn to in that moment, right, as the plane's plummeting towards the earth, the only person you could turn to would be the pilot. Would be the pilot in the cockpit, because the pilot in the cockpit is the person who has control of the plane, has all the knowledge of what's going on in the plane, and knows exactly what's going on.
[9:33] He's worked with these, or they've worked with these planes all their lives, and they know what's going on. And they're the only ones that you can look to to save you. And it's similar with your sin. We can't fix our sin by ourselves.
[9:46] We can't fix our sin problems by ourselves. Only God, by his grace, only the one who created you, who knows all things, and knows who you are, only he can help you by his grace.
[10:00] And he will, as we cry out to him. And that's what David's encouraging us to do. David cries out to God, and asks for God's grace, and asks for God's healing, in the midst of this sin problem. So you can also cry out to the Lord, when you're greatly troubled, because of sin problems in your life.
[10:15] When sin overwhelms you. When sin knocks you down. When you're weak. When you're curled up because of your sin. When you don't know what to do. Cry out to God. Cry out to God.
[10:28] In verse 3, David kind of finishes that part in verse 3, and he says, but you, O Lord, how long? How long? This kind of, this shows us another level of this struggling that David's going through.
[10:40] He's kind of impatient with it. He's crying out to God, can you just, can you just do it now? Can you just help me now? And maybe, maybe you've been through that as well, in your life. Maybe you're suffering with a sin problem, and you just ask God, help me right now.
[10:54] I just want to be out of this right now. Sometimes God doesn't, doesn't bring us out of it immediately. Right? He doesn't bring us out of it immediately. But notice that David doesn't just stop crying out to God.
[11:07] He doesn't turn away from God just because God doesn't answer him immediately. Right? David doesn't stop crying out to God because he knows that without God, he can't be saved out of this.
[11:18] Without God's grace, he can't be helped out of this sin problem. So David cries out to the Lord when he's greatly troubled because of his sin. But David also cries out to the Lord in the fear of physical death.
[11:33] He cries out to the Lord in the fear of death. Look at verses 4 and 5 with me. Turn, O Lord. Deliver my life. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
[11:46] For in death, there's no remembrance of you. Ensure who will give you praise. David is now, instead of having this sin problem that he's struggling with, he's now got this physical fear that he's kind of struggling with, this fear of death.
[12:02] This physical fear of death. And David pleads to the Lord to deliver his life, to save his life, to help him. But why? Why would God, why would God help him?
[12:15] Why would David know even that God's going to help him? Well, because of the Lord's covenantal love, because of his steadfast love. And that's what David mentions there in verse 4.
[12:28] Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. This is a love, the steadfast love has been mentioned all the way throughout the Bible. This is a covenantal promise that God has made with his people from Abraham to Moses to the disciples.
[12:44] And he also makes it to us. He also makes it to you, this promise. This covenantal promise, this steadfast love, a promise of steadfast love, he's made that promise to you.
[12:56] And we know that when God makes his promises, he doesn't let you down. He doesn't just give up on the promises that he makes to you. He doesn't just say one thing but act in the other way.
[13:08] He's consistent all throughout history and to his people he gives this steadfast covenantal love. So you can today cry out to the Lord in the midst of this fear of physical death and he has promised that through Christ, if you're in Christ, he promises his steadfast love to you.
[13:28] And this means in the midst of your biggest fears, in the midst of physical pain, you can cry out to him. This is the promise that David is resting on throughout this psalm. He cries out to the Lord in this fear of death.
[13:40] Look at verse 5 again with me as well. For in death there is no remembrance of you. Ensure who will give you praise.
[13:54] David is specifically worried about not being able to praise God and remember God after his death. That's what this kind of points to, that he might not, he wants to continue to remember God, he wants to continue to praise God and these are both really important parts of David's life and this should be really important parts of our lives as God's people.
[14:17] Hebrew belief in this time was that there wasn't like a hope of heaven. They didn't really know where they would go after death. They mentioned Sheol here.
[14:28] Sheol is like this grey state of death. Right? But for us, we've got the rest of the Bible.
[14:39] We know the whole story. We know more now than they did then. We know that Christ came and that Christ rose again. But we might still feel the weight of this physical death in our lives.
[14:52] We might still feel a fear, maybe not even just for your own life but also for your family's lives. And one day, and it's a fact that one day every single one of us are going to die.
[15:04] Every single one of us on this earth. But I want to encourage you that when you feel the weight of this physical death, cry out to the Lord. Cry out to the Lord and he will help you because he loves you.
[15:18] Because he gives his steadfast love to you, his people. And if you don't know him today, he welcomes you with open arms to come and cry out to him.
[15:30] He welcomes you in the midst of your physical suffering, in the midst of your suffering with sin. he welcomes you. Remember Jesus who knew the pain of physical death.
[15:45] He knew what it was like to suffer. He knew what it was like to be mocked, to be beaten and then he went and hung on a cross. He took the weight of God's wrath on his shoulders and he did that as a substitute for us.
[16:01] He stood there in our place so that if we repent and believe in the Lord, if we turn away from our sins and believe in God and cry out to the Lord, he promises to save us.
[16:19] Remember that we know more of the story, of the full story of the Bible than the Hebrews did at this time when David was writing. We know more of the story now and we know that Jesus not only died but he also rose again.
[16:35] And now he sat at the right hand of the Father. And in this truth, in this truth that Jesus died and he rose again and you can come to know him and believe in him, we also don't need to be worried about not giving God praise after death and not remembering God after death.
[16:56] We don't have to be worried about that anymore because we will stand with God in heaven for all of eternity. we will be with God in heaven for all of eternity. Remember what John said in Revelation 7 verses 9 and 10.
[17:11] He said, after this I looked and behold a great number that no one could number from every nation all tribes peoples and languages standing before the Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne.
[17:35] And one day every one of us who is in Christ every one of us who believes in the Lord will stand before him praising and worshipping him for all of eternity.
[17:48] Through God's steadfast love we will be saved. We will stand in heaven. So cry out to the Lord today when you feel the weight of physical death.
[18:01] You feel the fear of physical death. In the fear of physical death in the fear or in your sin problems when you're greatly troubled you can cry out to the Lord but you can also cry out to the Lord as David did in your weeping.
[18:15] Cry out to the Lord in your weeping. Look at verse 6 and 7 with me. David says I am weary with my mooning. Every night I flood my bed with tears I drench my couch with weeping.
[18:27] My eye wastes away because of grief it grows weak because of all my foes. David is in great sorrow. He is greatly troubled.
[18:39] He is in great pain. And to us it might seem that David uses quite a lot of exaggeration throughout this psalm when he says my eye wastes away because of my grief I flood my bed with tears I drench my couch with weeping.
[18:58] It might feel quite over the top for us but to David that doesn't feel over the top at all. That's a reality for him right now. This is the reality in David's life right now. In verse 7 we see for the first time that David's actually facing against some human foes and human enemies.
[19:20] David had a struggle throughout his life with some human enemies and this is the first time in this psalm that we see these enemies introduced which caused David massive distress. David's not in an easy life situation so what he says what he's saying isn't over the top at all they actually feel really quite real for David to say that my eye wastes away with grief and maybe for you today these words they don't feel over the top.
[19:50] if you've had a serious moment of suffering in your life maybe you've worn the loss of a loved one or experienced deep physical pain these words probably feel very real for you today.
[20:07] You may have felt like your eyes are wasting away because of all the crying. you may feel like there's no tears left you may feel like the pillow that you're crying into is soaked with your tears that it's drenched with tears this is what David's feeling and you can understand that today as well I think we can understand that today as well this suffering that David's facing isn't just a temporary one time suffering it's consistent it's constant it's at night right it says it says every night I flood my bed with tears and I drench my couch with weeping so it's not just that Mike but it's also on his couch during the day this is somewhere that David sits similar to a sofa for us he sits on his couch and he cries and he weeps it's not just a one time struggle this is a daily struggle for David he's devastated devastated with all that is surrounding him and he feels weak he's suffering he's helpless feels alone maybe but what does he choose to do in this suffering in this weeping well he cries out to God cries out to the Lord one of my biggest fears in life is receiving that phone call from a family member or a friend telling me that something serious has happened you pick up the phone you hear that distressed voice something serious has happened you have to get to the hospital immediately this is possibly one of the hardest situations that I could imagine us going through as a family member or a friend a loved one is going through serious illness there's nothing that we can do to help in those situations all we can do is we sit and we can weep and we can cry out to the Lord it can be one of the most loneliest places one of the loneliest feelings for us to be weeping in those situations by someone maybe in a hospital bed and maybe you felt like that in your life maybe at some point in your life or maybe you even feel like that right now something's happened and sorrow's all around you there's nowhere to go and you might feel trapped but there is one place that you can turn one person that you can turn to and he does hear us and he does love us through his covenantal his steadfast love we can turn and we can cry out to the Lord just as David did you can cry out to the Lord in your weeping cry out to the
[22:56] Lord and he will give you comfort and he will give you peace in these most difficult times of your life so as I've encouraged you today cry out to the Lord in your weeping cry out to the Lord when you're greatly troubled when you're in the fear of physical death cry out to the Lord but when we cry out we don't cry out to one who doesn't hear us we don't cry out to just no one we don't cry out without hope but instead as David does we cry out to the Lord in confidence as the Lord who hears us we cry out to the Lord in confidence look at verses 8 to 10 with me David says depart from me all you workers of evil for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping the Lord has heard my plea and the Lord accepts my prayer all my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment the entire tone of the psalm completely changes at this moment the entire tone
[24:07] David isn't just weak he isn't just moaning he isn't just languishing he isn't just weeping now he stands in confidence why does he stand in confidence how can he stand in confidence confidence because of the Lord because of who the Lord is look at verse 8 to 9 again the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping the Lord has heard my plea the Lord accepts my prayer David has confidence in the Lord in the Lord so when we cry out to the Lord today we cry out in confidence I wasn't a very confident child and I hated it in school when I had to present in front of the class bring a presentation in front of the class I hated the idea of having to make up a full presentation and stand in front of the class all eyes on me I hated the idea it was one of my biggest fears as a kid the week leading up to it was awful nights of preparation of anxiety of your heart racing you don't think you can do it and then that day comes that day comes and you're about to get up in front of the whole class and panic setting in you feel your palms sweating you have no confidence in yourself you don't think you can get up but then what if somebody walked through the door what if your parent walked through the door your parent the one who's helped you through all of this week's preparation leading up to it the one who has calmed you throughout your life who knows exactly who you are and knows exactly how to calm you down knows exactly what you want to hear and what you need to hear what if your parent walked up to you just before you got to that presentation sat down with you and chatted you through it calms you down your entire mood would change wouldn't it your entire mood would change you aren't scared your palms aren't sweating anymore your heart stops racing because you have confidence because your parent stands there with you and helps to give you that confidence and in a similar way we can have confidence when we are distressed because the
[26:29] Lord is with us the Lord helps us the Lord confidence David opened in verse 8 with a line of confidence he says depart from me all you workers of evil depart from me this line of confidence he has authority he's now speaking as one with authority in the same way in verse 10 he says all my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled David's not the one that's greatly troubled anymore but his enemies are he stands with confidence and authority now David's speaking of human enemies specifically that are probably seeking to kill him we know this in David's life we don't know exactly when the psalm is in David's life but we know that in David's life he was chased by human enemies one of those human enemies being Saul and his armies who chased David but we do know that David was saved out of this and God delivered him and David cried out to the Lord in the midst of his human enemies and now he speaks as one with confidence in the midst of his human enemies and I'd imagine for us today hopefully there's no one in here that has a human enemy seeking to kill them at least
[27:39] I hope not but we do all have a common enemy we do have a common enemy and that enemy is the devil 1 Peter chapter 5 Peter writes your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour the devil prowls around seeking someone to devour the devil's our enemy and he seeks to devour us and this reality can give us great distress this can be really worrying for us this can cause us to weep this can cause us to be greatly troubled this can cause us to be scared but this psalm gives us confidence that as we crawl out to the Lord as we cry out to the Lord in this in the midst of the devil he will hear us when the devil prowls around tries to devour us tries to pull us away from God tries to tempt us and pull us into that sin that we've been struggling with we can cry out to the Lord who's more powerful than this enemy the devil and he the Lord will hear your cry for help
[28:44] David now stands as one with confidence he's no longer curled up he's no longer languishing as I said he's not greatly troubled he's not in fear of death he's not weeping but he is standing as one whom the Lord has heard we saw little glimpses of David's confidence throughout the sand didn't we in verse 2 David said David understood that God would give him grace he said be gracious to me so he had some sort of understanding of God's grace later on in verse 4 he remembers God's steadfast love as well that covenantal love that God has promised throughout all of time so David did have confidence in the Lord as he was crying out to the Lord even in the midst of his when he was greatly troubled in the fear of physical pain and when he was weeping he had confidence so when you cry out to the Lord today when you're greatly troubled because of sin and the fear of death when you're weeping in any circumstance in your life whatever you're going through you can cry out to the
[29:50] Lord with confidence that he's heard you that he'll respond to you so cry out to the Lord today in whatever situation you're facing do you know him personally do you know the Lord personally do you know him as your saviour God welcomes you with open arms today to cry out to him cry out to him trust in him believe in him and he will save you and if you're one of God's people this morning all of us face trials every one of us will go through hardships in our lives but in the midst of all of these hardships cry out to the Lord cry out to God in your distress and he will hear you let's pray Father God we thank you for your word this morning thank you that this psalm of lament is maybe so real for some of us this morning
[30:53] Father thank you that you provide this psalm for us even in the midst of our distress Lord thank you that you hear us thank you for your steadfast love thank you for your covenantal love all throughout history until now thank you for sending your son to die for us on the cross thank you that now we can stand and cry out to you in confidence so Lord help us today help us through our lives to cry out to you in tragedy in hardships in our sins in our physical pain help us to cry out to you and we know that you will hear us Lord be with us today we do love you Lord and it in Jesus name we pray amen amen