[0:00] Please join me in Psalm chapter 143. We just have seven more psalms before we finish this book together. I like the line from that song that says, you'll take our worries and turn them into song.
[0:13] A lot of our psalms have done that. They've started off in one direction, but by the end of them, they've changed. We've seen many psalms of lament. Tonight, we're looking at a psalm that's in a series of seven different songs that are penitential psalms, meaning that they are one of sorrow and they're one of lament.
[0:31] And it's David here, once again, a psalm of David, who's in a time of crisis and affliction for something that is hurting him. I've never been in a penitential.
[0:43] I've never been in prison. Sometimes we go to my in-laws a day early for Thanksgiving. Not the same thing, all right? But it's supposed to have a reforming view.
[0:53] Steph's not here. That's what she gives for stepping out. But it's supposed to have a... If you go to prison or the penitential... What's the word I want to say? Yeah, there you go. Some of you have spent some time there.
[1:04] You know what I'm talking about. It's supposed to be reforming in your life. It's supposed to bring correction. And this lament will do this. And David, I'm going to read for you here in a moment.
[1:14] Why don't you look for three things, kind of categories as we go through it? First of it, David is going to say, Please hear me. That's what he's going to ask of God. Would you please hear me?
[1:24] Then he's going to say, Please don't look at my goodness. Look to your goodness. And then lastly, he says, Please let me hear your loving kindness. So please hear me.
[1:36] Please don't look to my goodness, but look to your goodness. And please let me hear your loving kindness. And to pay special attention to verse number two, where there's a clear statement here, where he is crying out about the unrighteousness in mankind.
[1:52] There's brokenness in this world. There's not just brokenness in this world, which we can all agree on. Both the news stations that you could watch would agree that there's brokenness in this world. But he says there's brokenness inside of me.
[2:04] And that's where lamenting is coming from. I look forward to always studying the Bible with you. Psalm 143, the night we will look at in the next 29 minutes, not 30 minutes.
[2:14] George Whitfield, a famous preacher of the Great Awakening, he says if you're going to preach for more than 30 minutes, you better have the voice of an angel or your audience better have the patience of an angel.
[2:25] All right? And so I'm going to expect any of one of those tonight. And so just under 30 minutes. And I consider maybe there's application for every one of us, no matter what Psalm we chose, no matter where I would pick up in the Bible, where God would have us.
[2:37] And no matter where you're at in life, God has something from God's Word to make application to you. But also I wonder and I pray that maybe there be somebody here tonight that this passage is very quickly relevant in your life.
[2:49] You're going through something. And I think that's often the case. Anytime there's more than a handful of us gathered together, there's somebody, probably one of us are carrying something, a desire to express our heart to God and just unable to do so.
[3:01] And the words of a psalm like this can help us. But also consider that there's another group of people that this message belongs to. And it's the people that you will encounter throughout the week where you can open up God's Word.
[3:15] Everybody likes it when they say, hey, I met somebody this week and I really needed your message from a few weeks ago and I shared it with them. And who wouldn't enjoy hearing that? But more than just getting a message shared with them, I pray that all of us will internalize the psalm here, understand it, and be willing to share it with people when the opportunity comes.
[3:34] And the true test tonight isn't how much I know about Psalm 143. It is going to be how much you will know and all of us together as we leave here tonight and how we can apply it to our lives and help others do the same also.
[3:49] So I'm going to read for us and then we will pray. Psalm 143, verse 1. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me and in thy righteousness.
[4:00] And enter not into judgment with thy servant. For in thy sight shall no man living be justified. For the enemy has persecuted my soul. He has spent my life down to the ground.
[4:12] He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old.
[4:23] I meditate on all thy works. I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hand unto thee. My soul thirsts after thee as a thirsty lamb. Selah. Hear me speedily, O Lord.
[4:35] My spirit faileth. Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning. For in thee do I trust.
[4:47] Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk. For I lifted my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will.
[4:58] For thou art my God. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake. For thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul.
[5:13] For I am thy servant. I want to pray tonight for those that are among us that might have that as a prayer. I want to pray for you. I want to pray for you. I want to pray for you.
[5:24] That he would quicken you. That he would lift you up. That you feel alone as you are in darkness. As it says in verse number three, you feel like you dwell in darkness.
[5:34] I want to pray for you. And I'm also going to pray for the ministry of the word as it goes forth from this place that God would use us as we teach his word.
[5:45] Heavenly Father, I thank you for this group that I'm gathered with tonight that have gathered around your word. Lord, the joy of being together. I just want to thank you for it. Lord, the joy of seeing Nate and Noah and Josh all give updates together.
[5:59] And just how rare and how wonderful that is for them to be here on this night together and them giving updates. And Lord, I thank you for what I've heard, what I've been challenged by.
[6:11] Thank you for everyone that has made the priority of your house tonight and being around your word. And the encouragement that they are to me and to my family. Lord, I know there's many stories in the lives of people.
[6:23] And I don't know what everyone is carrying. But Lord, you know what everyone would be carrying that comes in here tonight. And you also know what we carry that we should not carry. So Lord, I pray that this would be a night of those that would set things aside.
[6:37] That they would learn how to communicate with you. That they would learn how to talk to you in this time of darkness. Father, I also pray for those that we will minister to in the weeks and years to come.
[6:50] May we believe that your word has answers. That not only can it help us, but it can help the others, Lord, in which we meet. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. First thing I see here in the passage real clearly here is this cry.
[7:04] Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear. Turn your ear to me and listen to what I'm saying, my supplication. You get called upon occasionally. I'm sure that you do. And you're asked to pray.
[7:15] Maybe it's at a family meeting or occasionally I've prayed for some kind of local government thing. And you consider, what am I going to say when I'm praying in a public prayer?
[7:27] When you're praying publicly, I'm speaking on behalf of everybody in this group. So I want to consider what it is that I'm saying to the Lord on our behalf. There's those times you consider, what do I need to say in my prayer? But then there's other times where you say, who can help me?
[7:41] Where you know what's upon your heart and you're saying, who can I turn to? And that's where heartfelt prayer will come in. When you're taking things to Him that you know that if He does not help you, you will not be helped.
[7:53] And here's David in a crisis. He knew that he must cry out to the Lord and he does. And he says, hear me and if you don't hear me, then I will be completely lost.
[8:04] There's nobody else that I can take this to, Lord. But I'm coming to you and ask that you would hear me. And so that is the prayer of a lament, one of sorrow, expressing the hurt inside of you that is there.
[8:18] And so I would like to give you a few reasons that we see why lament is so important. Being able to come to God with your hurts and come to Him and ask Him to hear you in times of loneliness and sorrow.
[8:31] And when you feel like there's just so much opposition. The first one is, this is the language for loss. This provides a biblical vocabulary for us of talking to God when we're in pain or helping others as they're walking through suffering when they don't believe that God would hear them.
[8:48] And lament is the historic prayer language for hurting Christians. You may have some friends or family that have talked to you before about having a prayer language in their closet that they would speak to the Lord about.
[9:02] Even though I do not believe that's what the Bible would teach. I believe that the Bible would teach that tongues would be a known language. But what I do understand is their fascination and desire to communicate with God in words that they don't have to give.
[9:18] That desire so bad that I have something I have to say and I don't know how to say it. So as I said, the word tongue does not mean a strange or non-human sound of utterance. The Spirit helps us communicate what is inexpressible, but it does not lead us to utter an incomprehensible language.
[9:35] Romans 8.26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know that not what we shall pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
[9:49] So it's not an incomprehensible language. It's the Holy Spirit on our behalf making intercession. And so we need a language. Maybe you're here tonight and you just say, I'm just not there.
[10:02] I don't feel what you're talking about. Everything is just wonderful for me. But most of us in here, if you've lived any time at all, know what it's like where you need to communicate to the Lord and lament and praying to Him like this is the language of loss.
[10:18] It's also the solution for silence. There's times that you may be afraid to talk to the Lord or refuse to talk to Him in your struggles. Maybe it's because of shame or the fear of rejection or some type of anxiety or you're concerned that you'll be irreverent.
[10:35] And it gives rise to just prayerlessness. You have something going on in your life and you're not willing to speak to the Lord about it. And a prayer of lament like we're looking at tonight, it opens up the door to that conversation.
[10:49] It's going to Him without all the words and just sharing what is upon your heart in a reverent manner. And so in the Psalms that we have several of these laments, it gives us category for how we would bring our complaints to Him.
[11:03] It helps us complain to God but not in a sinful fashion. Because when we're hurting and we know that there's grief and it's biblical that we will handle grief, but we have a category where we can go to God.
[11:16] And a lot of people don't know that. They don't know that they can go to God with their hurting and their grief. And we can teach them and we can show them. We can show them from God's Word that there's been many people that have been there.
[11:28] And we even have the words. When you don't have the words, you can turn to the Psalms of Lament and read these words and God can help you. Jesus even in the garden, Mark 14, 36, said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee.
[11:41] Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will but what thou wilt. He was able to communicate in this song or this prayer of lament without sinning and without doubting God.
[11:54] And it even affected him physically. And all of that happened without sin in his life. And we know that. But this anxiety that you feel and this grief that you feel, it can be very real in your life.
[12:07] And there's a lot of different places that would like to tell you how to handle it. And none of them find any real resolution for you. A couple years ago, I went to the doctor for a checkup.
[12:21] And the doctor, I'd never met her before. And she just said, Are you stressed? And I said, No, I trust the Lord. And she says, Well, that's wonderful. And she said, Why don't you explain that to me?
[12:32] And I say, Well, I'm a believer. And I've been taught when there's things upon my life that I turn to the Lord. And I cast my cares about Him. And I thought I was doing a real good job telling this lady how I didn't.
[12:44] And she said, Well, that may be true. But you haven't told your body this. And your body is showing that you are carrying tremendous stress. And that you are not handling it as well as you thought you were.
[12:56] And so I found another doctor. Now I'm here. No. And I think we've been there before. And I wasn't. I wasn't handling it very well.
[13:08] I wasn't communicating to God. I was commuting to other people about it. And I was getting better at communicating with other people. I've always said that most people you meet have at least 20 minutes of story that they need to tell you before they think you could ever have a chance of really knowing them.
[13:27] They have about 20 minutes of background information in which they think, I really got to tell you this. And that they'll bring it out in their conversations. Maybe come out and just say it or not. And so because you want to be seen.
[13:39] You want to be known. And so I was becoming very good at communicating with other people what I thought my problems were. But I wasn't doing a great job at laying it out before the Lord and lamenting and giving voice to the pain that I was feeling.
[13:54] And so you could help other people express their heart in this life-giving discipline of lamenting, going to God in our pain. And it brings a framework for our feelings.
[14:05] So here in the Bible there's this song of sorrow. And it isn't just venting every emotion of your soul. But it's coming to God. And it's explaining your pain that you're having.
[14:16] And it's God-centered. And you don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's all about you. But you go to Him, which is an act of faith. And you say, I don't know the words to say. I don't know all that I'm feeling.
[14:28] But I'm not going to turn away from God. I'm going to turn to Him. And you express what is upon your heart. And it's also a process for pain. It's in the Bible.
[14:40] It's a biblical version of what you can learn in many good books, I would say, about the stages of grief. You know, on Sunday night we have grief share that takes place. And it's not just about learning to talk to one another about the grief.
[14:52] But it's learning about how to communicate that to God. These people in that room are a visible demonstration of the fact that God wants to hear from you. And that you ought to communicate about this. That this pain and hurt that you're feeling isn't something that's supposed to be put into a box and put in the back of your closet.
[15:08] But God's Word can bring comfort to you. The Holy Spirit can through other people. But you probably know the stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
[15:21] Well, in the Bible we would see this communicating to God in prayer through lament, which is what David is doing. And so it's coming to God with our complaints and asking for help and stating that we will trust Him.
[15:34] And this process requires that we will walk by faith. Just simply going back to the Lord and praying is a tremendous step of faith. And so it's more than something that just comes out of us.
[15:45] It's a process of what is happening inside of us. So it's a solution to our silence. It's a language for the loss. It's a proper category in our lives of the complaints that we have. It gives a framework for our feelings to say that they are not supposed to be driving the car.
[16:01] But they're not also to be ignored. It helps us process what we're going through. But it's also a way in which we worship. Many times you might consider worship being upbeat and it's something happy that's going on.
[16:14] But it's also a form of worship when you go to the Lord with outstretched hands, with these grief-filled prayers of pain to the Lord, expressing just your deepest hurts and feelings.
[16:27] And so the Christian life should be marked by these personal laments where we're coming to God and asking Him for grace and asking Him for the ability to shape and change us.
[16:38] We'll see more of this on Sunday. But grace is the greatest teacher, the grace of the Lord. And it gives us the ability in which to walk through these things as we should.
[16:49] And so since life is full of sorrows and opportunities that make us need to lament, lamenting is a vital part of our Christian life. And we should determine to know how and to do it.
[17:02] So here we first of all, we see David. He says, Lord, I'm coming to you. Please hear my prayer. And this is the next thing that he says. He says, don't look at my goodness, but yours.
[17:14] That's in verse 2. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear to my supplications. And thy faithfulness answer me. So I want you to look and answer me based on your faithfulness and thy righteousness.
[17:25] And enter not into judgment with thy servant. For in thy sight shall no man living be justified. He not only says I am broken, but he says that everybody is broken.
[17:37] And I'm not asking you to look down upon my goodness or my righteousness, but I'm asking me because of your faithfulness and your goodness, Lord, to hear me. And he's expressing a sorrow over sin.
[17:50] He is saying this is a personal confession. And lamenting ought to give us a greater sensitivity to our sins. Sometimes when we think of lamenting our prayers, they come from other people that have hurt you and their actions, but they also come from the brokenness that comes into our lives because of our own sin.
[18:08] Even after we receive Jesus, we still need to express sorrow to God for our sins. There's times where we know that we're going to reap what we have sown, so we come to God in personal confession and lamenting, knowing that sin is going to be costly, and we turn to Him.
[18:27] And we're asking God through this psalm that God would recognize that we are sinful in need of Him and to ask Him for hope and forgiveness and restoration.
[18:41] David's a great character in the Bible because we get to see so much of his life. We get to see the good times and the bad times. We not only see when he sins, but we also see how he responds to it. There's just so much in the whole life of David that is given to us.
[18:55] And even though he becomes a king and we don't become a king and he kills a giant and we don't kill a giant, we still continue to see ourselves in David because in this extreme examples, we see our own lives.
[19:08] And so in 2 Samuel chapter number 12, this is a story where the prophet has come to him and has spoken to him about taking a little lamb from somebody that needed it, and he's recognizing his own sin.
[19:20] Thou art the man. He is the one that has stolen Bathsheba. He has stolen a wife. And then we pick up in verse number 19, 2 Samuel 12.
[19:31] It says, When David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.
[19:42] David realizes that his servants who had come into the room were talking to one another, and David's child had died. In verse 20, Then David arose from the earth, and he washed, and he anointed himself, and he changed his apparel, and he came into the house of the Lord and worshipped.
[20:01] Then he came to his own house when he required, and he set bread before him, and he did eat. And so his servants are watching this, and they're just shocked by David's response to receiving this horrific news.
[20:14] David had been fasting, he had been praying, and now that his child had died. And they even say in verse 21, And the servants said unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast, and weep for the child while it was alive.
[20:27] But when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live?
[20:42] But now he is dead, and therefore should I fast? He asked us a question, Should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
[20:53] That resolution there, that resolve that he has come to. And then verse 24, So David here, in this time of grief and sorrow, he gets to a place where he washes, and then he's able to comfort those around him.
[21:17] In the book, Inexpressible Sorrow, by Michael Card says about David in this passage, David here has a language of godly sorrow, but he also has a reason, the hope again.
[21:50] This moment right here, you don't often think about as being a highlight of the story in David's life. We think about when he overcame different enemies.
[22:01] We think about killing a giant. But in this moment, this act of faith upon the Lord, where he goes to him in prayer, and then he is able to move forward in life, is a powerful moment.
[22:14] And so lament gives a language for godly sorrow, and a reason to hope again. It reminds us that even the small expression of our wayward heart is an act of worship towards the Lord.
[22:25] And so as we read in the Bible, and we come upon these Psalms, and you can see them in the book of Daniel, or the book of Ezra, we should shudder at the effects of sin.
[22:36] And then when we see like David in Psalm 51, we could consider sin in our own lives, and how we are in need of cleansing ourselves. In this way, lament can shine light on what we need to confess.
[22:49] It reminds us how much we need God's grace. The seriousness of sin seen through lament helps our soul keep the right perspective as we come to God with this brokenness.
[23:00] And so our failures, they're frequent enough, and our brokenness are deep enough that we need these prayers of lament to be a regular part of our lives.
[23:11] I'm just speaking about going to God with an honest conversation about what's going on in your life, and knowing that He will hear from you. Because when you're lamenting, it helps you realize that you're not struggling alone.
[23:27] Verse number three, For the enemy has persecuted my soul. He has spent my life down to the ground. He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead.
[23:38] Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me, and my heart within me is desolate. A loneliness there, a darkness. When you're hurting, there's no group of people that are going to take that pain away from you.
[23:49] There's only going to be this emptiness that you have. And when you walk in those moments with these high expectations that other people are going to take them from you, it will not be done. And so there's this private time of speaking to the Lord.
[24:03] We're all alone with God. And it has the potential to bring healing in your life, and it will strengthen you as you feel like you're walking alone. So we've presented the problem here is that David has come to a place in life, and we don't know.
[24:20] And that's a blessing upon us that we don't know what it is that brings David to this point. But here's David. He's lonely. He feels he's discouraged. He's depressed.
[24:31] And all these things are happening. And so what does he do? I'm not alone. I'm going to cry out to God. I'm going to express my heart to Him in my struggle and share this with Him.
[24:41] And the next thing he's going to do is that he's going to express that he is trusting in the Lord. Verse 5. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all thy works. I muse on the works of thy hands.
[24:53] I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Then the word Selah or Selah, which just means let's pause and let's make sure we don't miss this.
[25:05] Let's meditate upon this. So we've got to a place and we're crying out to the Lord for something that has vexed our soul. And here's something we ought to do in that time of prayer. We should remember the days of old.
[25:18] David remembered. Maybe he remembered the days of being a shepherd boy and God providing for him. Maybe he remembered the goodness and protection that God has given. Spurgeon said about this passage, When we see nothing new which we can cheer us, let us think upon old things.
[25:32] We once had merry days, days of deliverance, and joy and thanksgiving. And why not again? So remember the days of old. Then it says, Meditate upon thy works and muse on the works of thy hands.
[25:45] So what made the past worth remembering was the work of the Lord. And so David thought carefully about what God had done. We don't use the word muse very often. We use the word of muse.
[25:57] And so we should be able to figure out what the word muse is, which is to occupy, to study, to consider, and to think. A muse would be the opposite of doing those things. To observe, to meditate on, to consider the works of God's hand and the things that he has done in the past.
[26:13] And then this brings him to the next step of what he is going to do, which is David is going to stretch forth his hands. Ask God to stretch forth his hand. And David responds with hands, spreading them out before God in prayer and praise.
[26:29] This posture of prayer and praise was genuine hope for David in the midst of the misery that he had. That's verse 6. I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth for thee.
[26:40] You stretch forth your hands as if you're reaching for hope and that he will draw you near. So I want to encourage you that you keep leaning towards the Lord and trusting him.
[26:52] Keep trusting in the Lord during this time of praying to him. And then lastly here, not just stretching forth your hands, but expressing your longing. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land, as a land that hasn't received rain in any time, desires rain.
[27:11] This is what he is saying in his prayer, is God that I desire and I thirst after you. And so this ache in David's soul did not drive him away from God, but it drove David to pray to the Lord and to praise him.
[27:23] And then the last thing that he asks for as he's going through this dark hour of life and he says, I'm committed, Lord. I'm going to continue talking to you even though this is a dark hour of my life.
[27:33] I'm going to continue trusting you. I'm going to continue looking to you and reaching out. And then the last thing he asks for here, verse 7, Hear me speedily, O Lord. My spirit faileth.
[27:44] Hide not thy face from me lest I be likened to them that go down into the pit and cause me to hear thy loving kindness. The first thing we hear is this desperateness in his voice, this urgency.
[27:57] Hear me speedily. Lord, I need to know that you're hearing me right now. I desire your face. I desire your blessings. In the New Testament, we are given this confidence that even when we face adversaries, Romans 8, 31 tells us that, What shall we then say to these things?
[28:13] If God be for us, who can be against us? And so David says, I have so much against me right now, but Lord, would you hear me right now? Like how David Guzik puts it.
[28:25] He says this about David, The spiritually insensitive man cares little about God's favor and blessing. He lives only occasionally aware of a break in communion with God.
[28:37] David was no such man. This intense emotion that he was feeling, this awareness of where he was at in his life, this desire for the Lord was so urgent to David.
[28:52] I need it right now. As I go through Psalm 143 and I look at the words and I try to figure out what the passage says, I realize that a lot of times my lack of understanding doesn't come simply because I don't know what the words are saying.
[29:10] It's because I don't know, I have not experienced life the way that David is explaining it. Just like that urgency that says, I'm in a bad place in life right now and Lord, I just have to need you.
[29:24] I have nothing else. I'm going to turn to nothing else but to you. David was aware of what was going on in his life. He had a sensitivity to the things of the Lord.
[29:36] That statement, men, it applies to women as well. But that spiritually insensitive man cares little about God's favor and blessing. And so this Psalm may feel very remote to us.
[29:48] It's not that it should, it just does. But David says, when I get to this place in life and I'm in this dark season of the life, I don't want to move forward without the Lord. I know what life is like without His blessings but I move to cry out to the Lord and I need answers now.
[30:05] And so we ask God for help for hearing. Verse 8, Cause me to hear thy loving kindness. I've made a big deal out of this word before. Has said, thy loving kindness, His mercy.
[30:16] And that's what David prays for. Cause me to hear. Is what he said. Perhaps David is saying, God, if you're speaking, I've somehow failed to hear it.
[30:26] And so not only have I asked, Lord, would you hear me? But he's saying, God, I need to hear from you. And he asked that he would hear him in the morning. He says, God, I need you to teach me how to walk.
[30:37] Verse number 9, I need you to deliver me from my enemies because I don't know how to relate to that. I don't know what to do with this. I need you to hide me from my enemies and my problems.
[30:48] And then verse number 10, he says, teach me to do your will for you are God and the Spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. God, I need you to guide me.
[30:59] And now this becomes a prayer of revival and rescue. Teach me to do your will, verse 10, for thou art God. The Spirit is good. Lead me here. And then he gives two reasons. It's for God's glory.
[31:10] Quicken me, O Lord, for your namesake so that you would be glorified. And then he ends here, verse 12, destroy all them that afflict my soul because I am your servant.
[31:21] This lamenting has brought David to his rightful place and his identity. It's a personal song expressing sorrow while embracing God's goodness. And we have a story.
[31:33] It's never the song that we sought out to sing but is very much needed in our lives. And so David asked God to deal with his enemies but before that he asked God to deal with him, his own brokenness.
[31:47] And so here's some time of response before I pray tonight and we go and I'll pray through the psalm and we won't sing the night. It's almost eight and there's kids that don't want them and I told you I can't preach over 30 minutes because you're not angels and I'm not one either.
[32:01] But let's think about a time of response before I pray for this psalm. Are you at a place right now where you just have angst? You keep talking to other people. You keep trying to talk through the problem and it's just not going away.
[32:12] You're not speaking to whom that you're able to speak to which is your heavenly father. Don't worry that you don't have the right words. Come to him. He wants to hear from you. Come to him and open up in prayer.
[32:24] Not in an unknown language but just one that is open and real. Speak to him and then express that you don't have all the answers but you're going to trust him and ask him to guide you to guide you and to keep you away from the problems and to hide you and also to guide you in his will and do the things that we saw here in David.
[32:45] Remember the days of old? It hasn't always been like this. That's what Satan wants to tell you when you're in a dark season. It's always been like this and it will always be like this. Those are two of his favorite lies and that's not true.
[32:58] It hasn't always been like this and no it won't always be like this. And so remind yourself of the past and meditate on the work of the Lord. Meditate upon the cross. Meditate on the things that he's done.
[33:08] The works of his hands. And then stretch forth your hands to him reaching for hope. Is to say, Lord, I can't control any of this other stuff in my life. I'm tired of using my hands and trying to solve the problems.
[33:21] And just lay your hands up before the Lord and said, Here I am. I am your servant. And I live for your glory. And go to him in prayer.
[33:32] What a great blessing. And I remind you tonight that you have that available to you. In our grief and sorrow, you have that available to you. And I hope that you know that. And I pray that you're mindful of it right now and you'll be mindful of it at a time when you need it.
[33:46] But I want you to know there's so many people you come in the calendar with throughout the week and throughout the year. And even fellow believers who don't understand how to process what's going on in their hearts.
[33:58] And they believe that God would just have them to carry that on their own. And you could do a wonderful blessing to them when you could pull up beside them and say, Let's take this to our Father. Let's talk to him about what's going on.
[34:12] Let us have him help you process the grief. Don't allow shame and regret and all these things to keep you away from him. You need to speak to him. Let's take a moment and I will pray before we leave tonight.
[34:25] Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for these psalms of lament. I want to thank you that they provide words for us that we do not always have when we come to you in prayer.
[34:42] So I want to pray tonight, Lord, these words. I want you to hear our supplications. Not because we are faithful, but in your faithfulness would you answer us. Not because of our goodness, but because of you, your goodness.
[34:55] For I do not know what lays heavy upon the hearts of my friends, my brothers and sisters in here. I pray that there would be no sorrow of the heart that hasn't been brought to you in prayer.
[35:06] Father, if you were to judge any of us, we would know that we would not be able to stand in your sight. This world is broken and we are broken as well. Lord, there's enemies that have persecuted our soul.
[35:18] There's grief and there's shame that has persecuted us. Lord, it has spitting us to the ground. We dwell in darkness, Lord, and we are those that have longed to be dead.
[35:28] Lord, we have just been lifeless and it's been reflected in a prayerlessness. Therefore, Father, our spirit, it's overwhelmed within us and our heart sits all alone.
[35:40] And so at this time, Lord, we want to pause and we want to meditate and we want to remember the days of old. Lord, you have worked in our lives. You have brought us through other trials in our lives.
[35:53] And as I meditate on these works, Lord, I don't meditate upon my hands that are here in front of me, Lord, that have not been able to fix the problems. But I am going to think and I'm going to think about the works of your hand.
[36:05] Lord, I'm so insufficient. But Lord, you created this world with your spoken word. And that's where I want to lay my heart and attention. So I will stretch forth my hands unto you, Lord, because my soul is thirsty for you.
[36:20] And I pray that you will hear me, Lord, right now. Or if not my spirit, Lord, it will fail. Lord, I hide not your face from me. Lord, I'm asking that you will look down upon us and you will bless us and that you will cause us, Lord, to hear your loving kindness.
[36:36] And the first thing in our morning, Lord, as we're making decisions about our day and where to go, the first thing in the morning, Lord, I pray that we would hear your loving kindness. Father, I ask that you would deliver us from our sins and from our enemies and from the brokenness of this world and that you will hide us from these things.
[36:55] Father, teach us your way. Teach us your will. Lord, you are God. And we ask that you would lead us in this way and land of uprightness. Now, Father, quicken us.
[37:06] Make us alive, Lord, at times when we have felt dead. For your glory and for your namesake, because of your righteousness, Lord, we ask that you would deliver our soul out of trouble.
[37:17] Father, may we be cut off from our enemies and separated because we are your servants and we live for your honor and for your glory. Father, I want to pray right now for the ministry of the men, for my brothers and sisters in here as we will go out into a world, Lord, that is discouraged and they feel desolate.
[37:38] May we help turn their hearts towards you and help them how, show them how to pray to you in those dark seasons of life. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
[37:48] Amen. Amen.