Introduction to a Series on Lament

Good to see you tonight on warm summer Sunday evening tonight. I want to bring an introductory message to a series of message to a series that I want to bring in the weeks and months to come on the theme of lament and let me give tonight. Number one an explanation and then were going to look at an exposition feel it announcing a series of messages warrants an explanation so bear with me as I offer an explanation of why I believe the Lord would be directing me in this way, there's a couple of factors. One is that God has ordained that many of us walk a path of difficulty and heartache over the last months and years and I'm convinced that we haven't been without help, God's come to us and given his grace and we been instructed on how to navigate this way, but it seems because of this concentrated time that we've known as a church and I think those of you that have been here know exactly what I'm God is called so many away from us to glory, there is been extended trials and difficulties in dark providences for a lot of us. We need instruction in righteousness and I say that not in some general way we we believe that all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for each, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness but there are portions of Scripture that God has given, that is designed for instruction in righteousness four seasons and I believe that we are in a season is a church and I think that season warrants instruction in righteousness in those areas that are going to help us for this season and what portions of Scripture my making reference to well there are, depending on who you're talking to five categories of Psalm. Some say seven I read or someone said there's 20 but one of the largest categories of the Psalms is the Psalms of lament 30. In fact, of the hundred and 50 Psalms are Psalms of lament and what is the Psalter but God's ordained hymnbook for the covenant community to St. so gives language to this path of difficulty that we have been called to walk and it's inspired it's directed from God. It's not only for our personal sanctification.

But it's if you notice Psalm 77. It's to the chief musician to the music director Mrs. Hassan Psalm 77 that was to be sung corporately in worship. So would be the first reason the second reason is because of the direction we've gone with our Wednesday night prayer service summer in the Psalms and I've been reminded, as I've been perusing and praying over the Psalms. What Psalms I would select to bring on Wednesday night. I was reminded of my seminary days in extensive study that I did for class on the Psalms of lament and how much the Psalms of lament dominate the Psalter so that reminder and those of you that were in my Sunday school class oh months ago to three months ago we were studying through the book of Philippians and we came across a verse that I really had no intention in that particular Sunday morning to dwell upon, other than to mention it in our in our teaching and and move on, but it engendered an incredible amount of discussion in our hearts were engaged in. We were arrested by the word of God and were forced to reconcile what we read in Philippians chapter 1 with the inspired text of the Psalms and the lament Psalms, so let me mention those of you that weren't in my class what that particular Sunday morning was all about.

We had just considered Paul's instruction to the church at Philippi to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure that's Philippians 12 in verse 13 in the verse. It follows that is this do all things without complaining and disputing, do all things without complaining and disputing the Psalms of lament are Psalms of come complaint so we wrestled for the rest of that Sunday school class in the next Sunday school class, and although we gave extended time to that infant come to some kind of resolution in our minds.

I left that and moved on with a thought in my mind. You know what I want to revisit that I want to go back to that.

I think there's profit not just for my Sunday school class, but for the whole church that thought was in my mind months ago. Do all things without complaining and disputing, and why is that exhortation there. That's an imperative. That's a command do all things without complaining because God's not happy with people who complain and grumble. In fact, we are told by Paul over in first Corinthians chapter 10. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted he's talking about the covenant community in the wilderness, and then he gets down to verse eight. Let us verse nine. Let us not tempt Christ to some of them also attempted and were destroyed by serpents nor complain. Mrs. first Corinthians 10 verse 10, nor complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer know all these things happen to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come so the question is okay were not to complain their serious consequences for complainers and yet we have an inspired portion of the word of God that's given to instruct us in righteousness on how to righteously complain lament in our journey of faith. I read Psalm 77 and I'm going to give a short exposition of the Psalm, but Psalm 77 verse three. The psalmist said ASAP.

I remembered God and was troubled. I complain in my spirit was overwhelmed so we have that explanation of why were going where were going, and more specifically where we going I'm not good look at 30 Psalms, but I'm going to look at four or five of the key Psalms of lament and again trust God to instruct us in righteousness. I think there's wonderful help and profit for us here as individuals and as a church and then turn our attention to a book that is distinguished with lament and it is the book of what lamentations short book, but there is help there. So however long it takes us to do that. That will be the course that my preaching will take from beginning tonight till we get to the end of that in the book of Lamentations. Let's take a look at Psalm 77 the first two words ASAP says I cried. I cried, who taught you to cry, who taught you to cry with the answer of course is no one hello you don't remember it and I don't remember it.

The first sound I made the first sound you made. When we came out of her mother's womb was a cry. It's the most human thing to do to cry but to lament is something different.

A cry is what we humanly do lament is what believers do is what Christians do in their pilgrimage in their walk with the Lord now to me making some statements about lament there. There are loaded with with definition then I'll keep coming back to it over the weeks as were in the series and your you'll be hearing some things there, foreign to you and you be like what I want to get that down I'll continue to revisit that and give articulation to these definitions so we it's not fuzzy in our minds anymore.

Think of Florida just hand you piece of paper and tell me what you know about lament in the Bible.

I think most of us would be like, but I think that will change in the course of weeks and months to come. This is a short definition in this.

There's many things were going to say about this but lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God's goodness lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain in the promise of God's goodness see without hope in God's deliverance and the conviction that he's all powerful. He's all sovereign. We have no reason to lament. When pain invades our lives.

One thing we were going to learn from Asaph here in Psalm 77 is this man knew where to take his pain. This man knew how to persevere in the pain and the difficulty in the darkness that he was walking in, he was relentless and that he did not give up on it.

Psalm 142, just two verses there that just reinforce this psalmist there says with my voice. I cry out to the Lord with my voice.

I plead for mercy to the Lord, I pour out my complaint before him. I tell my trouble before him him writer had a right tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus. That's what we must do. We must go to the Lord with our trouble with our darkness whether perplexing questions with our with our angst with our depression with our darkness. We we must if we don't go to the Lord with it. Were we going to go and it seems that there are two pitfalls. We must avoid. When darkness invades our lives and suffering invades our lives in dark days come. The just and clouds that don't go away in disappointment, we can let those things linger in our hearts and we become angry. We come become bitter and we turn away from God because we conclude things could be different if God welcome to be different, but he has and therefore why pray to him about.

So that's a pitfall to avoid bitterness and anger, and the other is just a stoic attitude that well this is life. This is what is everything's fine. I'll get over it. Life will get better know those are two of responses that are less than adequate for person who is wanting to grow in righteousness, so we won't avoid those pitfalls through godly complaint that's almost sounds like a contradiction, but there's a difference between complaining about God and complaining to God and what we discover in the Psalms is complaint that is directed to God and we will not be turned away. We we we will not have God's disapproval nor frown upon us when we go to him with our questions. Some of us avoid entertaining questions in our minds because first thing that comes to my mind when I think about this is who Joe had lots of questions and he demanded have an audience with God to get his answers to his questions and when God finally gave him audience, God said who are you to be asking me questions and then God began to ask him questions so we have a resistance to it because we see in that example that's not the posture to assume to be asking questions of God, and demanding answers of God. But again, I think that can be reconciled with what were were were going to be studying here.

There is a place for honest searching in the difficulties of life and we need to know how to do that. You see we complain we lament on the basis of our belief in who God is and what he can do lament is how those who know what God is like and believe in him address their pain. God is good, but life is hard. That's just the truth. Life is hard because were living in a broken world. Their sin within their sin without so lament is the language of the people who believe in God sovereignty, but live in a world with tragedy. I suspect some of you are still not convinced that we are on up a good path here.

Your same. I'm not so sure it's safe to complain while I'm convinced that it's not sinful to complain. Why would God give us inspired text 30 Psalms that are the Psalms of lament that are given for instruction and worship the pray and sing back to God. If it was something sinful about. There's a place for kind of complaining. That's biblical and that's what we want to pursue so tonight quickly and what time I have. I want to show you for headings here in Psalm 77.

I want you to see number one. The psalmist depression verses one through six, number two, his desperation, and seven through nine, number three, his determination in verses 10 through 15, and finally his declaration in verses 16 to 20 is depression and of already identified that for you.

But in those first six verses that I'm calling the psalmist depression.

I'm not not minimizing the difficulties of his life way doesn't give us the specifics is just something that is consumed is life. It's dark, it's difficult it's troubling. It it causes him sleepless nights but in those first six verses 18 times you see the word I and me and six times. You see, God referenced Psalm doing the math. His focus is three times upon himself three times more upon himself and it is upon God, and there I believe is part of his problem and I believe that a lot of times that's where our problem is that we become consumed with our problems. We allow our problems to define us. We forget who we are in Christ, we forget the promises God is made to us in Christ.

We forget that God is all-powerful that he's rolling this world.

He's rolling the affairs of our life that all things do indeed work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose and we so easily can forget that what happens when our life becomes defined by our problem.

We look at our problem. We wrestle with her problem. Pray about our problem get counsel about our problem. Does our problem shrink or does a problem seem to get bigger and bigger bigger than life. We know the answer to that. The more we focus on our problems. The bigger problems, more difficulty. The more difficult they seem to us and how we deal with our problems is don't ignore our problems don't stick our head in the sand. Don't pretend they don't exist, but your eyes on God and realize he's bigger than our problems that God makes a way when there seems to be no way that he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think those things easily slip away from our minds. So was the psalmist doing here in the midst of his depression.

He's reaching out to God in the midst of his distress. I cried out to God with my voice to God with my voice, and he gave me in the day of my trouble.

I sought the Lord, my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing, being hands being stretched out as a posture of humble prayer and fervent faith. Yet, no matter how much he prayed. His soul was in such despair that he refused to be comforted.

See what he says my hand was stretched out in the midst without ceasing my soul refused to be comforted. Verse three is talking about his distress. I remembered God and was troubled.

Wait a minute I thought, remembering God was the best antidote for my trouble.

He says I remember God and was troubled. What's he doing he's reflecting upon God's past mercies.

He's remembering God's dealings with them in the past, but that seems to be no answer to his present difficulty wonderful that God was faithful to me. There and then. But what I need right now is help in the present and I don't seem to find it is spirit grew faint. I remember God and was trouble I complained in my spirit was over wound sleep evaded him. Verse four. You hold my eyelids open sleep evaded him, which he believed was God's doing.

He thought about his former days and God's blessings toward him. He remembered the songs that he sang in the night that Ed comforted his heart. He says I'm troubled that I cannot speak. I've considered the days of all the years of ancient times I call to remembrance my song in the night I meditate within my heart and my spirit makes diligent search that's important. Asaph is a man in trouble he is in dark despair. He is depressed and yet he is praying. He is seeking after God. He is making diligent search how easily he could have how easily sometimes we do draw the conclusion that prayer those prayers didn't work all that going to church all that praying all that reading Scripture doesn't help me so better quit doing that now that wasn't this man, my spirit makes diligent search. He says in verse six, but looking back upon happier times only deepened his depression, such as depression. In verses one through six. Notice how his depression moves to a more desperate state. Beginning in verse seven, the first verses he prays his struggle and in verses seven through nine. He prays his questions and listed in verses seven through nine or six rhetorical questions.

Note them with me. Will the Lord cast off forever and will he be favorable. No more, has his mercy ceased forever has his promise failed forever more. Has God forgotten to be gracious, and lastly has he and anger shut up his tender mercies question, does the psalmist really believe that God isn't loving doesn't keep his promises and is unfaithful. No, he doesn't believe that he doesn't believe that because the rest of the song teaches us that he doesn't believe that. So what what what what's these rhetorical questions. There's help here. Listen carefully, honest praying this way recognizes that pain and suffering often create difficult emotions that are not based upon truth but feel true nonetheless we can be prisoners to our emotions and our emotions can so control us that they can define us and consult twist our minds that we entertain thoughts about God that are just illogical. So to say to wait a minute you you believe you're going to be the first person that God is going to fail to keep his promise to involve people of ever trust you to be the first will know if you want to put it that way. Let's the waste talking. That's the waste talking it takes faith to lay our painful questions before the Lord. This is these are the questions of a believing person. This isn't an agnostic. This is a believing person wrestling with God's dealings with him and I daresay that some of us sitting here have entertain thoughts like this. We wondered our emotions have dictated those kinds of questions circling our minds so he looked at his depression.

We've looked at his desperation. Let's look at number three, at his determination is determination and again what what I'm wanting us to see is that lament is a prayer language lament is a prayer that leads us through personal sorrow and difficult questions in the truth that anchors our soul. This is how we move from despair to settled trust.

This is what this is given specificity to working out our salvation with fear and trembling. Sometimes this is what it looks like there's one verse in verse 11 that is repeated several times and it is the key that the whole Psalm turns on you know adversity. What word it is notice with me verse 10 and I said this is my anguish.

But I will remember I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high.

Verse 11. I will remember the works of the Lord. The second part of verse 11. Surely I will remember your wonders of old.

This is where the prayer makes its turn toward resolution in all that we feel and all the questions that we have there comes a point where we must call the mind what we know to be true again in all that we feel and all the questions we might have. There comes a point where we must call the mind what we know to be true and that's what this man is doing and the entire song shifts in verse 10 is looking back and he's reflecting on the works of God in the past I will remember the works of the Lord, surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. So initially's focus is on what God has done in the past and then in verse 13. His focus becomes more sharper, more focused, he shifts away from the historical works of God to the very character of God, he says in verse 13 Your Way old God is in the sanctuary who is so great a God is our God lets another rhetorical question how much different that rhetorical question is in the six rhetorical questions that he asks in verses seven through nine. Who is so great a God is our God and what is the obvious answer to the rhetorical question who is so great a God is our God on right.

That's what he say what is the what is Asaph, the writer here done. He has moved from his illogical questions that he penned in verses seven through nine that were born out of his emotionally driven life.

He's moved away from that to a settled trust that is rooted in the character and the historical dealings of God. That's what he's done when it sheer to short paragraphs from Steve Lawson's commentary on Psalm 77. He says this lament is how we learn to to live between the poles of a hard life in God's goodness. It is an opportunity to remind our hearts about God's faithfulness in the past, especially when the immediate events of life are overwhelmingly negative and while were still in pain. Lament reminds our hearts of what we believe to be true and then he says this hurting people are given permission to grieve, but not aimlessly or selfishly the biblical language of lament is able to redirect weeping people to what is true despite the Valley they are walking through. You see, I'm convinced that lament is a means of grace that God is given an ordained to help us in our walk of faith because if we live long enough were going to be assaulted by trouble and suffering and sin and difficulty hard things are going to come perplexing things that don't have easy answers and were going to have to know how to navigate through that and make our way to God and not be driven away from God and I believe lament is a means of grace and God is given where we work through these things and we come out the other hand, with a stronger faith. A more vibrant faith, a more settled faith, then we would have had God not ordain those things for us so we seen in our exposition. The psalmist depression is desperation is determination. Lastly, and quickly. Let's look at the psalmist declaration is declaration begins in verses 16 through 20. Talking about the waters in the clouds and thunderings, and in the seas. What what what is he making reference to Asaph in his declaration is describing one divine act from Israel's past. What is he describing he's describing the Exodus he's describing the Red Sea crossing is describing God's deliverance of his people from Pharaoh in the Egyptian army. Why would he lie when he in the midst of this Psalm bring that in. What's he doing what the Exodus served as an anchor for his soul. It's a reminder of God's past dealings with his people and it's meant to encourage him to persevere in the midst of his difficulties that the God who delivered in the past is a God who delivers in the present in a God who will get the member in the future regardless of what the need might be.

We don't look back. His new covenant believers to the Exodus book we look back to what is our Exodus is a Christian we look back to the cross we look back to what God did for sinful men in redeeming them and reconciling them and justifying them. That's what we anchor our soul and we learn from the. The language of argument in the Scriptures that if God would do that for us.

How would he withhold any other thing that's good for us if he redeemed us pay that kind of a price for us. Why would he abandon us. Why would he be an unfaithful Shepherd. All of a sudden was not going to be the cross shows us that God has already proven himself to be for us and not against us. So the Exodus. This dramatic supernatural deliverance, God led his people like a shepherd would lead his flock tenderly, powerfully protecting them like sheep and that's the imagery. There in verse 20 you lead your people like a flock and you lead your people like the flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron one convinced that it takes faith to pray when were in pain. It takes faith to pray when life is hard and difficult and dark.

It takes faith to do that, but the exhortation if we've been to take anything away from Psalm 77 is to keep talking to God. Don't allow your fear, your despair or your past tendencies to be silent cut off God's flow of grace to your life. Whatever you do don't stop talking to God. Keep wrestling keep struggling. Keep praying. Keep searching.

Keep seeking is God's means to grow our faith is God's means to test our faith in the develop our faith and to take us to a deeper place in our walk with him. Tears are part of what it means to be human but to lament his Christian it's a prayer of faith for the journey between a hard life in God's goodness.

Psalm 77 is a wonderful example of connecting lament and turning to God.

Lament is a means of grace that pushed direct it.

The psalmist here toward God in his pain.

What I like about the Psalm many things, but it gives it gives language to the honest struggle of the Christian life. We don't have to pretend everything's fine. Everything is wonderful if life is hard acknowledge that it's hard take those difficulties did God wrestle with them before God and allow God to use that wrestling to lead you into a deeper walk with him.

The psalmist filled with honest struggle, deep pain, tough questions, but determined trust, determined trust, so I'm convinced that we need instruction in righteousness to learn how to lament to resolve.

To the degree we can in this life the struggles that we all wrestle with from time to time. I believe if God will help us in bless this series, it'll be a wonderful encouragement to us and will be a wonderful help to us because I'm convinced that there's very few of us setting here who's not faced difficulty I've been I've been tested recently we had a set of 11-year-old triplet girls in our home for week when they're looking across the table and asking you questions about why why did this have to happen to me and then this question.

Where was God when this was happening to me. You got two little girls eyeballs staring you in the face and one done answer. We better not have a flippant answer just reminded me.

You don't have to be 30, 40 years old and be walking with the Lord. 10 years to be in a place that the psalmist found himself in this perplexing things happen to children and their asking and are wondering if God will help us in our struggles. Perhaps we can help some other I believe part of the role of a pastor is to equip the saints to do what to do the work of the ministry to help you to be able to help someone else will.

Let's commit this message to the Lord in this series as we move forward. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for how you have preserved.

This inspired portion of your word for our instruction in righteousness.

Lord I pray that you would help us to grow in our faith to rest in you to trust you that you have ordained things for our good and your own glory and we thank you that you're not put off by our questions. We thank you that your God is long-suffering and patient with us God who grants persevering grace to us a God who leads us from 1° of glory to the next. We pray that you'll use our study tonight and Psalm 77 to grow us to help us in our own struggles in our own walks with you in this series as we move forward that you would bless it for our sanctification and for our good and for our own usefulness in this world and for your own glory sake. I pray, amen