Well, after I'm done reading Psalm 6, I'll say, this is the word of the Lord, and let's respond, thanks be to God.
Psalm 6, to the chief musician on Nigonoth, that's stringed instruments, upon Shimoneth.
That's probably a musical melody or note, but we don't know much about that ancient Hebrew term,
but it actually confirms the antiquity, how ancient these psalms truly are.
It's a psalm of David.
Verse 1.
O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure.
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak.
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.
My soul is also sore vexed, but thou, O Lord, how long?
Verse 4.
Return, O Lord, deliver my soul.
O save me for thy mercy's sake.
For in death there is no remembrance of thee.
In the grave who shall give thee thanks?
I am weary with my groaning.
All the night make I my bed to swim in.
I water my couch with my tears.
Mine eye is consumed because of grief.
It waxeth old because of thine enemies.
Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity.
For the Lord hath heard the sound.
The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
Verse 9.
The Lord hath heard my supplication.
The Lord will receive my prayer.
Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed.
Let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
This is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, and sufficient word.
Isaiah tells us that the grass withers and the flower fades,
but the word of the Lord, it endures forever.
Would you pray with me?
Oh Lord, we ask that by the power of your Holy Spirit,
you will take these words that you breathed out,
and that you will give us clarity,
help us to understand what you mean with Psalm 6.
And we pray that your Holy Spirit,
the same Spirit that breathed out the Scripture,
will press the truth of the Gospel upon our hearts.
We pray that you will, Lord,
not let anyone here leave
without believing in Jesus Christ for your glory.
We ask, Lord, that you will be glorified
through the word that's preached,
and in our lives as we leave here.
We pray for the sake of Christ.
Amen.
Well, beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
did you hear this glorious promise in verse 8?
You can put your eyes on it again.
David said,
The Lord, He hears the voice of my weeping.
That's the promise from Psalm 6
that I want to try to press home to you.
God hears the voice of your weeping.
Psalm 6 is another Psalm of David.
The warrior who crushed Goliath's forehead,
here in Psalm 6,
is paralyzed with sickness in his bones.
Don't you love Hebrew poetry?
The musician who brought comfort to others
trembles with an aching soul
at the thought of death.
That same king who danced for joy
before a whole nation,
he now weeps alone before God.
Psalm 6 is the prayer of a man in affliction.
He feels buried under a tsunami of his own guilt.
He says,
My eyes fail.
It's like his eyes are a dam
trying to hold back the waters
and they break forward.
You know, we live here in Colorado
and some say that
Colorado has a tendency to have hard hearts.
It's a certain type of people
that migrated west,
individualistic, self-sufficient people.
And to cast the gospel seed here
is like throwing wheat onto Rocky Mountain.
But even John Steinbeck,
the American author,
was honest about this.
He said,
Quote,
Nearly everybody has his box of secret pain
shared with no one.
End quote.
So pause in light of Psalm 6
and try to be as honest
at least as John Steinbeck.
What is the cause of your pain?
What is most difficult about your life?
What feelings lead you to weep,
if any at all?
The Bible says that there is only one hope
in life and in death.
And that is if,
if you are not your own,
but you belong body and soul
to our Lord Jesus Christ.
The next question in our catechism asks,
then what must you know
to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
And there are three answers,
which I chose this
because it's really the progression of Psalm 6.
You must know three things
to live and die with the joy
and the assurance that you belong to Christ.
Number one,
you must know your own guilt.
You and I,
we must know how great our sin
and misery are outside of Christ.
Number two,
we must know God's grace.
We must know how we are set free
from all of our sins by God's mercy.
And number three,
we must know gratitude.
How I am to thank God for such deliverance.
So what you need to know is guilt first,
grace second,
and gratitude third.
Listen for that theme
as we move through the verses of Psalm 6.
I've tried to pull up five biblical truths in Psalm 6.
The first one is this.
Before you can be healed,
you must know how great your sin is before God.
Look at verse one.
David says,
Oh Lord,
rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me.
Don't chasten me
in your wrath
or in your hot displeasure.
See,
David says that his suffering,
it comes from the hands of men,
his enemies,
his foes.
That's how he's describing his affliction.
But David's guilt,
it tells him that behind the suffering
from the hands of man
is the providence of God.
It's the discipline of God on me,
which I deserve.
So it's as if David is saying,
Oh Lord,
I accept your correction,
but please restrain your wrath
or else I'll die.
David's saying that,
God,
if you act toward me
like a man would act,
I'm dead.
The beauty of the gospel,
it comes in the light of who God is.
You will never truly know
how great your sin is before God
until you know
how truly great God is.
And some within earshot,
you might be saying,
I've rejected God a long time ago.
I've rejected church and the Bible
a long time ago.
You might have rejected a God
that is not the God of the Bible.
You might have rejected a church
that's not a church of Jesus Christ.
Because God is not like man.
If that's the God you rejected,
you rejected an idol made in your own mind.
Man is created.
God is creator.
Man is emotional,
but God is all virtue.
Man is vindictive.
That's why David's shaking.
But God is unchanging.
Man acts rashly,
but God radiates his essence consistently.
Man reacts,
but God is pure act.
And if your guilt is plaguing you,
this could be the Holy Spirit
beginning to soften
that rock-hard soil of your heart.
So thank Him
if you feel guilt
before this holy God.
Romans 3 says,
Isaiah 5 says,
The Lord will be exalted in judgment.
He will show Himself holy in righteousness.
So the first thing we need to do
is stop denying how broken we are.
It's like a doctor trying to warn you,
you have diabetes.
If you keep eating sugar and Twinkies,
you will die sooner.
Stop denying that you have this disease
and listen.
Listen to the Holy Spirit,
even if it comes through that feeling of guilt.
Do you want to be healed?
Then you must first know how great your sin is.
And when you feel the weight of your sin
before this holy God,
it will soften your heart.
And if you weep for your sin,
if you weep for your guilt,
those are tears that will bring healing.
So let it flow.
The Lord heals by cutting open your guilt.
And He must cut it open
so that His medicine can get inside of you
to heal you.
So the first truth is that
before you can be healed,
you must know how great your sin is before God.
And the second truth is that
when God cuts you open
with the guilt exposing you
before His holy moral law,
He does that because He wants you to ask
for the healing balm of His grace.
Look at verse 2.
David prays,
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for I am languishing.
O Lord, my bones are troubled.
David uses this word languishing.
He says, I am weak.
Three times David describes himself
and the Hebrew word is Baha'u'll.
And it means faint, weak, troubled, terrified.
You could take the original meaning
and translate verse 2 this way.
He's saying,
Lord, be gracious to me
because I'm like one who droops.
I droop before you like a withered plant.
Lord, be tender and gentle
with this plucked flower of yours
because I am so easily crushed.
When he says in verse 2
that my bones even are troubled,
he's saying the most solid part of me
that should give me some stability,
even that is vexed.
My bones wobble.
But David appeals to the grace of God.
He says,
Be gracious to me, O Lord.
And he's not just making something up
about God from his own thoughts.
He's calling upon God
from God's own word.
It's from Exodus 34
where the Lord told all of his people
for all generations,
I am the Lord your God.
I am merciful.
I am gracious.
I am slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness.
That's what God says I am.
David simply reminds God,
you said you are gracious and merciful.
So be gracious to me now, Lord.
Heal me.
Be merciful to me.
David's confessing I am sick.
I have demerited any favor
I could ever hope for.
I appeal to your kindness, David says,
out of your grace.
Cut me open.
Remove the cancer from my sick bones
so I can be healed.
In verse 3, David says,
My soul also is greatly, greatly troubled.
So it's not just his outer man,
not just his bones and his flesh.
It's his soul.
My soul is greatly troubled.
He says,
But you, O Lord, how long?
It's like he interrupts himself in mid-sentence.
But you, O Lord, how long?
How long, O Lord?
Isn't it true that when we suffer,
minutes of suffering feel like hours?
Hours feel like days.
Days feel like weeks.
Some of you have been suffering for years,
and you're crying out to the Lord,
How much longer?
How long, O Lord,
was a favorite prayer of John Calvin's,
one of the great reformers.
Sometimes it's reported that was all he could pray.
He faced physical ailments,
tiresome burdens.
He was frequently misunderstood.
He endured constant opposition.
Isn't that encouraging that we're not alone
when we suffer through affliction?
Martin Luther,
he was a man who was so troubled often in his soul,
he questioned his own salvation.
And even in discovering the doctrines of grace,
it didn't stop.
To his very death,
Luther questioned,
How could it be that God would save me
with such amazing grace?
Am I really saved?
Martin Luther wrestled with that.
Charles Spurgeon in London,
he suffered with depression
throughout his entire ministry as a preacher,
preaching the gospel,
going home,
and weeping in solitude,
unable to even get out of bed sometimes.
When God disciplines Calvin,
Luther,
Spurgeon,
you and me,
when we go through affliction,
God is seeking one thing from us.
It's our submission to him.
So the answer to the question,
How long, O Lord?
The answer is,
Until you surrender to me.
And even then,
I might not remove this affliction from you,
but you will be surrendered.
You will know sweet peace and joy in that affliction.
David felt in his body,
but he felt it even more in the aching of his soul,
the weight of his sin,
and his need for God's grace.
He asked for God to be gracious to him and heal him,
and he's asking for that gracious balm,
that salve to be put on his wound that God's opened up.
You know,
a person with a fryer burns themselves with hot oil.
You're going to need to put some ointment on that right away,
but it's not just a one time,
is it?
You're going to need to keep putting more and more and more healing balm,
healing ointment on the burn
until God restores all those layers of skin.
That's how his grace is with us when he cuts you open,
and your heart finally receives the truth of the gospel,
and he softens the soil of your heart enough for that gospel seed to take root.
He continues pouring more and more grace on you,
more and more healing ointment,
and he keeps opening you up deeper and deeper and deeper,
and putting more grace in
until he heals you to the roots of your soul.
What a gracious Lord we serve.
That's the second truth,
that when God cuts you open with guilt,
it's so that he will heal you
with the balm of his grace
over and over and over
until your soul is ready for heaven.
Praise the Lord for his amazing grace.
The third truth from Psalm 6
is that David still is troubled,
and he counts the cost of remaining in the guilt of his sin
by rejecting or not receiving God's grace.
Maybe you feel like God is beginning to soften your heart of stone.
Do you want him now?
Do you want him to cut you open?
And do you want his grace?
Because if not, you need to do the same as David.
You need to ponder the thought
of life without God now and forevermore.
You need to count the cost of not receiving his grace.
Look at what David prays in verses 4 through 7.
He says,
Turn, O Lord.
The Hebrew word is return.
I knew what it was to have your presence.
Now it feels like your back is to me,
and I want you to turn back to me, Lord.
Deliver my life, he says in verse 4.
Save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
Verse 5,
For in death there is no remembrance of you.
In Sheol, who will give you praise?
Verse 6,
I am weary with my moaning.
Every night I flood my bed with tears.
I drench my couch with weeping.
Verse 7,
My eye wastes away because of grief.
It grows weak because of all my foes.
David is full of the fear of death.
He ponders the thought,
the terror of dying and being put in Sheol.
That's the realm of the dead.
And that thought of his soul being away from God forever,
that causes all of the fears to go up
to the next level of horror in his mind.
And he says,
It's like I'm swimming in my own tears at the dread of that thought.
He is pleading for spiritual mercy from the just God.
And we can infer that David is fainting at the thought of eternal death.
But in verse 4,
David asks God to return to him.
See, the sin in David's life and the weight of his own guilt,
it made him feel so distant from God.
Isn't that true?
You're saved, but when you sin,
your fellowship with God feels broken.
You know God is unchanging,
but you still feel so distant.
And that guilt,
it's good for us when it stirs up
the thought of what life would be like
for eternity.
Away from God.
He says,
Lord, if you heal me now,
I will praise you.
But if you don't heal me,
how am I supposed to praise you from the grave?
Spurgeon said,
Church graveyards are silent places.
The tombstones cannot sing God's psalms to him.
So if God is keeping you alive now,
it's so you will sing his praise
while you have breath in your lungs.
If God would spare David's life,
then David would live to praise God out of gratitude.
David is appealing once again to that promise from Exodus 34.
Who is this God?
Yes, God said,
I am gracious.
I am merciful.
I'm slow to anger.
God says,
I keep my steadfast love for thousands,
and I forgive the iniquity,
and the transgressions,
and the sins of my people
when they turn back to me.
If David could have that hope of God's mercy,
looking way forward into the distant,
and into the king,
and priest,
and prophet,
who would come from his line,
the one and promised Messiah,
and by faith in that promised Messiah,
David could know God's grace.
How much more can we have hope?
We can look back at the finished work of Christ.
Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 45.
Whoever believes in him has eternal life,
and whoever does not obey him will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains on him.
So Jesus warns you,
turn to me now and have eternal life,
but if you do not repent,
you remain in your sin,
and the wrath of God remains on you.
You need to ponder the thought of missing God's grace
by rejecting him,
by keeping your heart hard.
God said,
I am God.
There is none else.
All who turn to Christ will be saved.
Anyone who forsakes Christ has eternal death.
The message of Scripture is,
weep over our sin now,
and we will enjoy life with Christ forevermore.
But if in our pride,
we reject Christ now,
we will spend eternity weeping in our sin.
Count the cost of rejecting God in your pride.
Your only hope to live
is if God will cut you open,
remove your infected nature,
and instead fill you with his love and grace
through Jesus Christ.
The fourth truth is that
if you have eyes that can weep,
here's our glorious promise,
God will hear the voice of your weeping,
and he will transform you
just like he transformed David.
See, there's a transformation that happens in Psalm 6,
and it takes place after verse 7.
Put your eyes on verse 7
into verse 8.
This shift is so radical
that some commentators
don't even know how to explain it.
Listen to what David prays next
after talking about his fear
and his room,
his private room filled with his tears.
In verse 8 he 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.
The Lord accepts my prayer.
And in verse 10 he says,
Now it's not God
who's got his back turned to me,
it's God who has returned to me,
and it's my enemies
who've got their back turned away from God,
running from him and his coming judgment.
All of a sudden,
there's no more fear in David.
There's no more terror.
And it's not hard to explain this shift.
We should let God's word interpret it for us.
Look at verse 8 one more time.
The shift comes because God
has answered David's prayer.
Three times David recognizes,
The Lord heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord heard my plea.
The Lord accepts my prayer.
And it changes everything.
He has heard the sound,
the voice of my weeping.
One Puritan broke this down this way.
No matter who we are,
no matter who you are,
there is a language of weeping
that God always hears
and God always understands.
Weeping is the eloquence of sorrow.
It needs no interpreter.
Our tears are understood
even when our words fail.
Let us think of our weeping,
I love this,
as liquid prayers.
See, David's sad tears of guilt
are transformed
by God's grace
into joyful tears
of gratitude.
I need to tell you,
if there is hope for David,
everything we know about him
from Scripture,
there is hope for you and me too.
David felt
the healing of God
in his soul
throughout his whole body.
And he enjoyed
the peace and joy
that come from the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
I want to confess,
early in my marriage
to Andrea,
before we had children
or maybe our oldest
was very little,
Andrea had to confront me
that I was not leading
our little family
spiritually well at all.
I went maybe 10 years
as a young husband
and father,
10 years
without shedding a tear
over anything
and a very hard heart
though I was saved.
In the last five years or so,
I can't really explain it
except that many others
have experienced
something similar.
The Lord just
broke me down
gradually
through his word.
And the kingdom of heaven,
as simple as the gospel is,
it's true,
it's real,
and it changes everything.
And as the Lord
grew in me
a desire
to aspire
toward doing that work
of an overseer
and the thought
of my sin,
my unworthiness
before him
and his holiness
and entrusted
with the souls
that he loves
and shed his blood for,
the tears have just
come so quickly
and it's tears of joy
and I just want
to know him
more and more and more.
And I share that
because if there's
hope for David,
if there's hope for Jason,
there's hope for you,
for every single one.
And there's hope for me
for my future.
I don't trust myself
with my future,
but God will keep us
because David prays
for God's steadfast love
to hold us.
And he does that
by reminding us
of his love
and it overflows
from his grace on us
through tears.
works its way out
from the soul
through the body.
Praise the Lord.
Another Puritan said,
a penitent tear
is a powerful ambassador.
It never returns
from the throne of God
disappointed.
God hears the voice
of your weeping.
Yes, the wages of sin
is death,
but the free gift of God
is eternal life.
Romans 6.
Because Jesus came
to seek
and to save
you and me
while we were lost.
Hebrews 4,
we're told that
Jesus Christ
is the only mediator
between God and man
and he is able
to sympathize
with our weakness,
our trials,
our afflictions,
even our tears.
In every respect,
Jesus was suffering
and tempted
yet as we are,
but he remained
without sin
because God's
steadfast love
was full
in Jesus Christ
and through him
it overflows
unto his people.
Well, we've made it
through all the verses
of Psalm 6.
Those were four truths
and I said we have five.
The fifth truth is this,
that God's grace
soaks in
and he heals you
as you exercise
gratitude
for his grace.
You need to exercise
gratitude for his grace
to keep working
that healing balm
into your life.
I'm going to take us
back to verse 4.
We pointed out
how David says,
return,
return, oh Lord,
and deliver my life.
Save me for the sake
of your steadfast love.
And then in verse 5,
David says,
how can we praise you
from the grave?
It's like David saying,
Lord, if you heal me,
if you spare my life now,
I will live
to give you praise.
So the lesson
from Psalm 6
is that God hears
the voice
of your weeping
and when he heals you
by his grace,
the only appropriate response
is to live
in gratitude.
God was still there
all along with David.
It felt like he was distant,
but God was with David
through his affliction.
We have a mediator
that is closer to us
than a brother.
He is with us
through our suffering.
If you are going through
anything in your life
that is bringing up
this weeping
or this affliction
that is causing you
to cry out,
how long, oh Lord?
Remember that
in your anguish,
through the dark night
of your soul,
God is with you.
Jesus says,
I will never leave you
nor forsake you.
And it's the blood
of Jesus Christ
that cleanses us
from all sin.
1 John 1, 7.
See church,
Christ loves you
so much
that he saves you,
but he doesn't just leave you,
he washes you
and grows you
through gratitude.
We're told in Ephesians 5
that Christ loves the church
and gave himself up for her.
Listen to this.
That he might sanctify her,
having cleansed her
by the washing of water
with the word.
So exercise your gratitude
for Christ
by letting him wash over you
and sanctify you
by his word.
God hears
the voice
of your weeping
because our Lord Jesus Christ,
God who took on flesh,
he bore your guilt
to kill sin
so that you
can have
peace.
Our Lord Jesus Christ,
God
became flesh
to show you
that truly
the Father
hears the voice
of your weeping.
That's why he was
the man of sorrows,
crushed to death
to conquer Satan
so that you
can now live in joy.
God hears
the voice
of your weeping
because our Lord Jesus Christ
who took on
a body
and was wounded
in that body
to die,
to be buried,
and then to be
raised victoriously,
inaugurating
the new creation.
And he did this
so that you
may be healed.
And enjoy life
everlasting
with him.
Know that God
hears the voice
of your weeping.
Put your trust
in him.
May his grace
wash over you,
heal you,
so that you
can live
in gratitude.
Let's pray.
Amen.
God bless you.
Amen.
We read in 2 Corinthians
4.13
that the Holy Spirit
works in us
far more exceeding
an eternal weight
of glory.
And Father,
we ask that you
will work that
in your people today.
Work in us
the weight
of your glory
by the grace
of Jesus.
Fill us.
Fill us to
overflowing,
Lord,
with gratitude
for your love.
We long
for that final day
and we do cry out
as a church,
how long,
oh Lord,
please come quickly,
Lord Jesus.
We long
for that final day
when your warfare
is completed.
When all of your enemies
have been vanquished
and they've departed
from the new heavens
and the new earth
finally,
constantly,
forever.
We long
for that day,
Lord,
when sin
and suffering,
death and Satan
are no more.
When there will be
no more weeping.
We will only enjoy
the peace
of perfect,
perfect oneness
with you
in your new kingdom.
Come quickly,
oh Lord,
and until then
prepare us,
Father,
for your return.
For Christ's sake
we ask.
Amen.