Where have the days gone?

Pslam 13 my first "sermon"

I preached my first "sermon" well it was a chapel message at Holland Christian High School. I got up in front of 800 students and however many teachers. I think it went okay. I wish that I would have had it completely memorized, but I didn't have time. There were a couple of times where my nervous almost got the best of me, but I just slowed down and tried to regain composure.
If you're interested here's the message...

Psalm 13

In Psalm 13, the writer cries out:

1 How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

4 and my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6 I will sing the LORD's praise,
for he has been good to me.

One warm summer night, Kurt and his friends Bryan, Scott, and Travis decided to go swimming at a local farm pond about 5 miles outside of town. All four boys were enjoying a summer of freedom before they started college in the fall.

Scott said, “I bet I can beat all of you across the pond.” “Yeah right Scott, maybe if my left arm was broken,” replied Bryan.

So the guys decided to race from one end of the pond to the other end. “Ready. Set. GO!” And they were off.

Bryan made it the other side first with Scott and Travis close behind. The three guys climbed to shore. “Where’s Kurt?” asked Travis.

They turned around and looked at the pond. Kurt had only made it half way, and he was struggling to keep himself above the surface. At first the guys froze before reality kicked in. They jumped back into the water and swam as fast as they could towards Kurt. The three guys didn’t utter a word to each other; the only sound was the frantic swim strokes of the boys. They could see Kurt slipping below the surface as they began to close the distance between them and Kurt. Their muscles were slowing due to exhaustion.

By the time they reached the middle of the pond they couldn’t find Kurt. They kept searching and searching. Travis swam back to shore and ran to call for help. They finally found Kurt, but it was too late. Kurt was dead.

The boys hadn’t been drinking; it wasn’t a reckless action. All of them were healthy and athletic guys that had swam multiple times across that pond over the years. Kurt may have cramped up in the middle of the pond and panic may have set in.

Questions must have flooded into the boys’ minds as the shock wore off and the difficult reality set in. So where is God? How could He let this happen? Kurt’s death seems so pointless. What kind of God would allow this to happen?

Put yourself in Travis, Byran, and Scott’s position.

How would you talk to God? Could you even talk to him?

The Psalmist in Psalm 13 feels a lot like Bryan, Travis, and Scott. The Psalmist feels like God has forgotten about him. The Psalmist emphasizes his point by stating that God has intentionally hidden his face from the Psalmist. The Psalmist confronts God with four “How long” questions. He doesn’t want information from God to answer his questions; he’s accusing, protesting and questioning God. Simply put: The Psalmist is pissed off at God. He feels forgotten, alone, confused, and defeated. The Psalmist knows who God is, and what he has promised to do. He’s yelling because he knows that God is listening. Psalmist is telling God that life isn’t right. There is injustice. Things need to change, and God is responsible to change them. In verse 3 the Psalmist writes 3 imperatives for God to look, answer, and give light to his eyes. The Psalmist is telling God what to do. The Psalmist is extremely bold here because he is putting himself at the same level as God, the high King, by making these demands. The Psalmist is claiming some kind of authority to do so. He knows that his relationship with God can handle his crying out in raw emotion and protesting the evil and pain in the Psalmist’s life. The Psalmist cries, “How long, O Lord.”

Like the Psalmist, we feel like God has forgotten about us and has intentionally turned his face away from us. We want to scream “how long, O Lord” at God’s face. Maybe we live in a home that isn’t safe from emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Maybe someone very close to us has been diagnosed with cancer. Maybe we have friends that have all of the sudden alienated us for no reason.

We want to tell God what He should be doing. He should be stopping the pain and evil in this life. But we often stop short. We don’t yell at God. We bottle it up. We’re scared. Can we really accuse God of leaving us? Can we question why God put us in a dysfunctional family? Why friends and family are diagnosed with terminal illnesses? Why has a friend started a false rumor that has spread around the school? And the ultimate question: Why isn’t God being God?

Questioning God doesn’t seem right or okay to do. In our heads, we may falsely think, “If I’m a good enough Christian with a strong enough faith, I’ll be able to see the good out of this horrible situation. God is sovereign and wills everything. God must be willing this pain in my life.” Or maybe we think, “Christ suffered on the Cross, and maybe I’m supposed to suffer too.” We use illogical logic tells us that it is a lack of faith to question God in our prayers or out loud. Maybe if we don’t voice our emotions and feelings, then maybe they don’t exist. Can we really trust God that he can handle what we throw at him even when we’re in deep sorrow and darkness? Do we trust that God can handle our raw anger, frustration, confusion?

The Psalmist does trust that God can handle his anger, frustration, and confusion. The Psalmist knows that he can come before God and scream “How long O Lord?” There is shift in mood from the Psalmist lament to God in verses 1-4 to a confession of trust in God in verse 5. Although this shift seems so quick from him being pissed off to trusting and praising God, the Psalmist is in a covenantal relationship with God. It’s an agreement between him and God that God will never leave him and that he will be faithful to his people.

The Psalmist states in verse 3 “Look on me and answer, LORD my God.” Here he is claiming not only that God is his God, but that he, the psalmist, is still one of God’s covenant people. The Psalmist is remembering the promises of God to his people of “I am the Lord your God” that are repeated throughout the Old Testament. The Psalmist knows that he can come before God and protest the injustice and pain and command God to act. The Psalmist knows that God is listening to him even from the deep darkness that surrounds him; otherwise he wouldn’t put forth the effort to write the Psalm. The Psalmist knows that God is not just hearing but listening and will act. God is big enough and strong enough to handle what the Psalmist accuses him.

Even though God hasn’t acted, the Psalmist trusts that God will in the future. In verse 6 the Psalmist will “sing the LORD's praise, for he has been good.” The Psalmist is holding onto that and places his hope in that.

Like the Psalmist we can trust in God that he can handle our anger, frustration, and confusion. God is our God, and we are his people. We don’t have to just talk to God. We, Christians, chosen by God, can yell at Him. We can scream out at the pain and in the injustice of this world. God even helps us by giving us scripture that conveys our anger, hurt, and frustration against Him. He allows his people to yell and scream at him. He’s big enough to take it. It’s not like he doesn’t know what we’re thinking anyways. God allows us to speak that way to him. We’re not in danger of losing our salvation or faith. He has created a paradigm that we can come before Him, almighty God, in faith. We don’t have to be “proper and put together Christians” all the time. It’s impossible to do. There is injustice in this world, and there is a lot of pain. We suffer, and God is the only one that can help us.

One third of the Psalms are filled with lament Psalms where the writers protest what is happening in their lives and the oppression and suffering they are experiencing. God has created such an intimate relationship with his people that we can directly come to him and lay everything out honestly. We can come to God when our emotions are raw and our thoughts are confused. God has given us Scripture to help us in the process of lament, and he has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us through the process. We’re not alone in our sorrow.

Psalm 13 and other Psalms 5, 40,44 to name a few show us that: We can state that things in life are horrible like Kurt’s death. Something has to be done because things can’t stay the same. We won’t accept the present situation because it’s not fair and it’s unjust. It’s God’s obligation to change the situation. Lament is the way that we process pain. Naming our feelings and our pain, then pains lessens its strength and strangle hold on our life and faith. In our distress we can yell at God, “how long?” because he listens to us. He responds with Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. Christ has been victorious over death, and when Christ comes again he will usher in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. There will be no more pain and suffering, and we can continue to come directly before God to speak with him. We will no longer cry out “How long, O lord.” God will restore all of his creation and end pain and suffering forever. We will sing like the Psalmist "the LORD's praise, for he has been good to me." Amen.

posted by Sarah @ 12:55 PM