Lament to God | Psalm 77

If you have your Bibles with you, I'd invite you to open them up.

The first Bible reading is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 and we're looking at verses 20 to

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

25.

That's Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 20 to 25.

Deuteronomy 6:20–25

Are we all there?

In the future when your sons ask you what is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees

and laws the Lord our God has commanded you, tell him we were slaves of fear in Egypt but

the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders, great and terrible, on Egypt and Pharaoh and

his whole household, but he brought us out from there to bring us and give us the land

he promised, an oath to our ancestors.

The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God so that we might

always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.

And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God as he has commanded

us, that will be our righteousness.

Our second Bible reading is from Psalm 77, the whole chapter, so please if you have your

Bibles, open them up at Psalm 77.

This is a lament Psalm.

I cried out to God for help.

I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress I sought the Lord.

At night I stretched out untiring hands and I would not be comforted.

I remembered you God and I groaned.

I meditated and my spirit grew faint.

You kept my eyes from closing.

I was too troubled to speak.

I thought about the former days, the years of long ago.

I remembered my songs in the night.

My heart meditated and my spirit asked, will he never show his favor again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

Has his promise failed for all time?

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Then I thought, to this I will appeal.

The years when the most high stretched out his right hand, I will remember the deeds

of the Lord.

Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.

Your ways God are holy.

What God is as great as our God.

You are the God who performs miracles.

You display your power amongst the peoples.

With your mighty arm you redeem your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you God.

The waters saw you and rivered and reaved.

The very depths were convulsed.

The clouds poured down water.

The heavens resounded with thunder.

Your arrows flashed back and forth.

Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind.

Your lighting lit up the world.

The earth trembled and quaked.

Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints

were not seen.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

This is the word of the Lord.

I'll now ask Scott to come up and give us God's message.

But before I do that, let me pray for you Scott.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for Scott and we thank you that he will be giving us your

words today.

Not his words but your words.

We pray, Heavenly Father, that we are loved hears to hear and hearts to receive your word.

Not only just be hearers of the word but doers of the word, Heavenly Father.

So we pray you'll be with Scott now.

Lift him up by your Holy Spirit and help him to be clear and for us to receive your words.

In Jesus' mighty name we pray.

Amen.

Good morning.

It's great to be with you again.

I was here back in December if you remember.

If not, that's okay.

In Australia, there's culturally one right answer to how are you going?

And that is, or like how was your week?

What's the correct answer?

It's good.

The answer is good.

It was good.

Or if you're feeling honest, oh I'm just a bit tired.

I would say that that's anything but healthy.

That's why the government has implemented plans like, are you okay?

To at least force us to think about the facts that maybe we might not be.

Because culturally if we're honest, yeah, we're not.

Often we're not going okay.

Not everything is all good.

But I know that if I'm honest, I hate to impose and take up too much of people's time.

I hate to put the spotlight on myself when even I am suffering.

And most of the time that's actually exactly what I need.

I need help.

Because everyone seems to be going okay and because everyone's fine, we get surprised

and even shocked when people break.

When things snap, when people suffer, when our friendships fall apart, when marriages

break down, when jobs are lost, we kind of end up being confused.

Because I thought everything was okay.

We say to ourselves and to each other, they said everything was good.

And so Christians, are we any better off?

How comfortable are you with sharing your pain with others?

Is this church a safe place where you can voice actually how you're going?

Or have we also bought into the lie that seems to equate godliness or being Australian with

being stoic?

That expressing emotions, pain and suffering isn't a place for church.

Well this morning we're going to be guided by Psalm 77.

And the psalmist seems to be going through some rather significant suffering.

In our psalm, it's a song, it's a prayer kind of put together.

The psalmist calls out to God.

Rise out to God from his heart.

And we get a glimpse today into that prayer.

We're going to follow the progression through it.

The progression through pain and sorrow.

And we're going to do so because it's here to teach us.

The psalm is going to give us words to sing, words to pray when we suffer.

These words, they're going to help you, they're going to guard you and carry you.

Words that you can sing and pray when everything else really feels like ash in your mouth.

When nothing else fits.

It's the anthem for those who are descending and working through suffering.

To do the logistics of this sermon, how we're going to work, we're going to work our way

through kind of, you know, verses all the way through.

We're looking at kind of the raw nature of the psalm.

Kind of the pain and the sorrow.

And when I kind of need to take a breath from that, we're going to step out, we're going

to see the logic and the structure of this psalm, this lament.

Trying to balance the fact that this psalm has true beauty to it, but at the same time

I'm really not all that arty.

So laments are expressing deep sorrow.

Deep pain and grief.

The psalmist doesn't try and control them.

He doesn't bury them deep down, but he gives them to God.

And so today our passage is going to teach us how we can rightly come to God in the midst

of horrific pain, sorrow and grief, while not minimising how we're feeling.

But I should say that if you're suffering now, this psalm might feel like it's too much.

Your pain may still be super raw, still really fresh, you still feel like you're bleeding.

And the psalmist gets to the end rather quickly when you feel like you're just beginning.

If that's you today, let this psalm help you to think through that process of lamenting.

Let it faintly and gently point us to how we can and should proceed, even though we're

not there yet.

May it point you to the path ahead and give you the hope that you need.

But maybe you're on the other side.

Maybe this psalm actually seems irrelevant to you, because actually everything is great.

You've yet to suffer.

Maybe you're young and spring in your step.

But we will suffer.

It's the guarantee of life.

And people need to be taught to swim before they find themselves in trouble in the water.

So please come and allow this psalm to prepare you for when you do.

God's word is here to teach us, equip us, how to live rightly and to pray rightly.

This is a lament psalm.

Lament's kind of follow a good pattern, so it's worth pointing that out now.

They kind of form a V-shape or a valley, like whoo.

They slope down, all the way down to the bottom.

And then there's the slope up.

They often fit into this kind of pattern.

There's at first the crying out to God, then followed by the asking for help.

And then the upside is responding in trust and praise.

That's most lament.

Our one is a slight twist on that.

We're going to run verses 1 to 6.

These are our three points.

Crying to God.

Then verses 7 to 9, right at the bottom.

There are questions to God.

And then verses 10 through to 20, we're going to remember God and trust in Him.

So three points.

Crying to God.

Questions to God.

Remembering God and trusting Him.

So let us begin.

It's worth noting that as a psalm, it's known as wisdom literature.

There are questions that our psalm raises, statements that are said, where the answer

to all those questions comes through slowly thinking through this passage.

Spending a lot of time just sitting and thinking it through.

Trusting in God.

Because it's a message and a pattern that's given to us that is helpful for life.

Which draw you in to help you to trust in God in the real world.

And so our psalm is going to show us the transition through lament.

Kind of progress through pain.

It doesn't give you the fix.

Doesn't give you all the answers about suffering.

But it is a help on your journey.

This is what God has given us for moments of intense suffering.

Expressing our pain and suffering and resting in Him.

Let's begin with our first point.

We must and we should cry to God.

See that with me, verses 1 through 6.

Let me read that for us.

I cried out to God for help.

I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord.

At night I stretched out untiring hands and I would not be comforted.

I remembered you God and I groaned.

I meditated and my spirit grew faint.

You kept my eyes from closing and I was too troubled to speak.

I thought about the former days, the years of long ago.

I remembered my songs in the night.

My heart meditated and my spirit asked.

It keeps going from there.

It begins with this address to God, verses 1 to 6.

The images of someone in their bed, besides their bed, calling on God, seeking the Lord,

stretching out his hands up, refusing to be comforted.

There's a sleeplessness which gripped him, which seems to come through his pain.

But he also attributes it to God Himself.

He's unable to speak, unable to get through this pain and sorrow.

The psalm doesn't tell us what the problem is.

It's like it leaves that blank for you so that you can put in your suffering.

Then the psalmist turns to God.

Does that solve the problem?

See verse 3.

I remembered you God and I groaned.

I meditated and my spirit grew faint.

Just remembering God leads to groaning.

Be that prayer or thinking about God's Word just doesn't have the strength.

He's just so tired.

We can't disconnect our mind and our body.

When your body is unwell, that affects your prayer.

It affects your spirit and it gets harder.

Everything is more tiring.

Even when he looks back to the past.

He looks back to the former days.

Maybe he's hoping, maybe he can remember, maybe find joy there.

But no, that only seems to emphasize his current sorrow.

Everything was so good but now I'm in so much pain.

Do you pray like this?

Do you even think like this?

Do you allow yourself to go through this?

Because it's messy and it's raw and it feels uncomfortable.

We can often be so caught up in presenting ourselves as good clean people, all the boxes

ticked, have it all under control that we think that this isn't appropriate.

Again we pretend that being stoic and hard in times of pain is godliness.

But that's not true at all.

First let's again consider that God has given his word to teach us.

Teach us acceptable ways to grieve, acceptable ways to lament, to cry out to him, cry out

with each other and to pray.

God can handle how you're going.

He already knows and he desires for you to be honest with him.

Like a parent with teenagers who scream and in moments of confusion or rage tell their

parents that they hate them or cry all over them.

Is that not always more preferable to them just leaving, to being just quiet and bottling

it all in?

An honest messiness.

Even error in your thinking is preferred to silent treatment.

Tell God how you're going.

But again the other side of the coin, you may feel disconnected from the prayer.

Again because you've either not suffered or even if you are suffering, this seems a bit

much.

The language here is so intense.

And so our second consideration is something that helps us and I can't take full credit

for this so this comes from Christopher Ash.

That this psalm as wisdom literature reflects absolute truths but they require thoughtfulness

and wisdom in applying them.

There are some psalms whose prayers solve such immense suffering but there are others

of such joyous occasions and in both of them I feel inadequate.

How can I pray them?

I know my heart is all over the place even at the best of times.

How can I sing the songs of a truly crushed person or the songs of a truly righteous person?

Because I know that my life I flick from loving God and seeking his glory to then at the next

moment wanting praise for myself or just some selfish me time.

But wisdom literature, the psalms are perfect prayers.

It's often as if Jesus himself praised them for us in perfect joy or in his passion and

suffering.

And as Christ's prayers then they're also our prayers, the prayers of the church together.

As we live and follow Jesus we may not be suffering to this extent.

But around the world there are certainly those who are crying out and to a lesser extent

don't we live that out.

As in every church there are those who are suffering as they wrestle with sin, grief

and sorrow.

Maybe it's family that don't know the gospel.

Maybe churches that we know that have failed, congregations that have been split or sadness

from sickness and death.

There are so many ways that we can feel sadness that's reflected in this psalm.

God wants us to cry out together to him.

So even if you think that you don't match the extent of this suffering we can pray these

prayers.

We can learn from them, be shaped by them.

We need to learn from them so that when we're drowning in grief we have learnt and taught

ourselves how to respond.

So that's our first point, we need to cry to God.

But our psalm moves on to questions.

That's our second point, remember if you remember the V shape this is right down at the bottom.

Questions to God.

Say it with me verses 7 through to 9.

Will the Lord reject forever?

Will he never show his favour again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

Has his promises failed for all to him?

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Has the Lord rejected me?

Does he no longer love me?

Potentially the psalmist answers with yes because that's what it feels like right at

the bottom.

Right now it's hard.

I can't see your favour.

I can't feel your love, your promises.

All these questions seem to be questioning God and his character.

But as I said before how can this then be the prayer for Christians, of Christians?

Don't these questions sound and feel like someone who doesn't have faith?

No, because these are questions of one who does believe, has deep knowledge about God

and right now their faith is under pressure.

The psalmist knows God is loving, that God never rejects his people as a covenant-keeping

God, one who is merciful and compassionate.

That's where those questions are coming from.

But right now he can't see it.

All there is, is distress and pain.

It isn't a lack of faith.

These are the signs of faith in hard circumstances.

Lack of faith would be not praying at all.

So again God can handle our pain, all of our feelings.

Did you not give them to us?

Need to call out to him.

It's just like my children in the night.

If they fall out of bed, they can't find their way back in the darkness.

God wants us to call on him in a spring.

Call out to him with your questions and your complaints.

Because we can say, God you're over all things, but we suffer.

Lord help us, save us.

Where is your love?

Where is your help?

As God abandoned us, are we to stumble in the darkness of our pain and misery forever?

Will God do nothing?

While there is calling out in pain and even complaints behind those, all behind those

questions is the faith and knowledge.

And that the answer to those questions is eventually no.

God will not reject us forever.

In our lamenting, in our calling out to God, in our complaint, though it takes time and

though it will be painful to work through pain and sorrow, we can't stay there.

We return to our knowledge of God, knowledge of his love and his mercy towards us.

And that's where the last part of our psalm is going to take us.

The outwood slope.

But before we get there, it's in our suffering that that's when we need a solid knowledge

of God and what he has done for us.

All of the psalmist's questions, they come from a place of pain, but also an actual knowledge

of God.

He knows God, he's heard about God and what he's like.

And it is when the pain and the suffering is upon him that what he's already been taught,

what he's been grounded in, helps and supports him.

It catches him at the bottom.

I've kind of already begun slightly with this, but when one falls in the water, their instincts

kick in.

What they've been taught, what they've practiced will help and support them.

And so too for the Christian, when we fall into our pain and suffering, when we're overwhelmed,

the psalmist, he is questioning, he's bringing his pain to God, whom he knows so well, whom

he spent so much time with in prayer and whom he knows loves him.

And so may I encourage you now, while we can, before suffering, even now during suffering,

we need to build a strong foundation.

We need to dive deep into God's Word.

Dwell, spend so much time with what he's already done for you in Jesus.

And see how that must shape our thinking.

And we need to do that if you can before you suffer.

So you have a strong foundation, a strong trust for when that comes under pressure.

It's our second point, questions to God.

But we can't stay there.

We can't stay at the bottom.

And our third point, last half of our psalm, we remember God and trust him.

Let me read that, verses 10 through to the end.

Then I thought to this I will appeal, the years in the most high stretched out his right

hand.

I will remember the deeds of the Lord.

Yes, I remember your miracles of long ago.

I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.

Always God or holy, what God is as great as our God.

You are the God who performs miracles.

You display your power among the peoples.

With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The water saw you God, the water saw you and writhed.

The very depths were convulsed.

The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder.

Your arrows flashed back and forth.

Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind.

Your lightning lit up the world.

The earth trembled and quaked.

Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints

were not seen.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Let's begin by looking at verses 10 through 12.

At first this seems weird.

Why is the psalmist relating to God through who he is and what he has done?

And most likely that's not even for him, but for his forefathers.

It's because that's how you judge someone's character.

It's either who they are or what they have done.

We do this all the time.

Your friends and relationships, they're generally not focused right really on the here and now.

Actually we give time to those and are friendly with those who we've already met, those who've

already spent time with, those who've already shown themselves and proven themselves.

But negatively also those who have hurt you in the past, you remember and you're wary

of.

It's all those past actions weighing how you're going to relate now.

Even family friends that go way back generations, you remember.

And so our psalmist here remembers the past actions of God and he remembers.

And particularly here it's the image of the Exodus.

The Exodus takes him to rest in God and worship him.

That's verses 13 through the end.

Got it again written here but I've already read it.

The Exodus recap here is so important.

Firstly because it clarifies our suffering.

This is the psalmist, he's remembering God's act of salvation for his people.

God's saving strong arm, the arm that quite literally smashed Egypt.

And it's that God who in power saved his people before when they cried out to him in Egypt

that he has in view.

But in the midst of that rescue, after Egypt has already been decimated by the plagues,

if you were one of those people leaving Egypt, heading towards the promised land at the edge

of the sea, you look back and there's the armies of Pharaoh coming to you.

And God's people are terrified.

In front of them is the sea, what appears to be a wall of water that they can't get

through.

There's the cloud and pillar of fire and as someone there it would have been absolutely

terrifying to watch.

And the people wailed, they cried out so distraught, why has God let us here?

God the son answers that the waters rise before God.

All of nature moved out of the way to God saving his people.

And that the salvation of God was through the sea.

It would have been so hard to have been there.

So that specifically verse 19, the path led through the sea, your way through the mighty

waters though your footprints were not seen.

And that was the way that God rescued his people, leading them like a flock by the hand

of Moses and Aaron.

That waters looked like death, but God's people went through it.

God led them in through and out the other side.

The psalmist looks back and he remembers the Exodus.

He points to God's rescuing act and so trusts and rests in him now in his present suffering.

There may be suffering and pain and grief now, but God rescues and guides us.

Guides us even through waters of judgment, even through death.

Because the psalmist he looks back and he remembers that it was that path, the hard

path through the waters, through that time of terror that God saved his people.

That's the path of salvation through there.

That God led them to the promised land.

And so the psalmist calls to us in our suffering to also join him in trusting, join him in

worship and praising the one who likewise will get us through.

The God who is strong enough and has proved himself in the past.

Will we not do likewise?

Is that not also what we just celebrated with Easter?

We remember God's salvation plan.

We remember that Jesus our Lord, he came and died and suffered for us, but was raised again.

The suffering that he went through gave way to glory.

And Jesus himself also didn't miss any of the struggles and suffering of this life.

He went before us and we are to follow him.

We should know what is before us.

Yes there is suffering, but through that, because of what Jesus has done, that path

is clear.

Because we follow a suffering Saviour, there is, and we know for certainty that there is

salvation on the other side.

A salvation that we know for sure is ours.

Already purchased, already acquired.

And so we can follow and trust him, rest in him in our suffering.

We can trust him because he has already saved us.

And so the psalmist ends.

He calls us to worship.

He calls us to trust in God.

But it's worth saying I think to end, that the psalmist has gotten to this point of trust

probably still while he is in the midst of his suffering.

There's no indication in our psalm that it's disappeared or dissipated.

That there's been any relief.

But even in the midst of his suffering, though he doesn't know how long it's going to be,

how long it's going to go on for, he knows that that's part of God's plan of salvation

for him.

He trusts in his God.

He calls us to sing this, to pray this, to join him in our suffering, in our pain.

As you walk alongside others and pray for others who are also suffering, again and again,

we must be pointed to God's act of salvation.

For the psalmist it's the Exodus, but for us what's even bigger is the cross and the

empty tomb.

Our suffering can scream at us all the questions that the psalmist raised earlier.

Has God's love ceased?

Has he forgotten to be merciful?

But the good news of Jesus and having that at the centre of our suffering means that

we know that God hasn't forgotten us, but rather has already given us everything to

save us, to take our sin, to bring us salvation.

We can know that our pain is temporary.

We can be sure that sin and death don't ultimately have the victory.

What I need each day is to come anew and follow Christ, our good shepherd, through the path

that he has for us, knowing that he leads us to salvation that he already has won for

us, even if I can't see that now.

And so will we do that for each other?

As a church we need to be always calling and pointing one another to remember God's saving

acts, to remember what Jesus has already done for you.

We never get to the point in your Christian life where we no longer need to be centred

and focused around the cross of Jesus.

Every day what I need, on my best day, on the day when the world is crushing me, what

I need to be reminded most is of what Jesus has accomplished.

Let us in our suffering cry to God, knowing that he hears us.

Let us honestly bring our questions to him with the foundation that's built on knowing

God.

Let us remember and trust him because he's already shown us his love in Jesus.

Let me pray now.

Lord we come to you in desperate need of your help.

Lord there are many of us that are suffering, many of us that have suffered, many of those,

many of us that will suffer.

Lord help us learn from your word that you are a loving father that desires to always

have us come to you, to bring our sorrows and sadness to you but also to each other.

Lord may we do so, ever pointing each other again to your cross where your son took our

heart, forgave us.

Oh Lord help us each day to again come there, to not try and do anything by ourselves but

to delight in what you have accomplished.

Help us Lord as we help each other, resting again on your son.

Lord we need your, we so need your help so we ask it in your son's name.

Amen.