Stability // Learning how to Lament

Amen, amen.

We're going to be in Psalm, chapter 13 this morning, psalm 13.

Psalms 13 · chapter mention

And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes, when I experience a hard time, sometimes it's hard for me to really process everything that's happening in here.

When I'm going through it, in fact, my default is to try to fix things.

Are there any fixers in the room?

Fixers?

Yes, okay, yes, okay.

So I either try to fix things or I'm a little optimistic.

I can be a little overly optimistic at times.

Are there any optimistic people in the room?

That's right, the glass is never half empty.

It's always half full.

It's always half full, and sometimes what can happen is I have a hard time processing everything that's going on in here, and I just don't think I'm alone.

I want to introduce a word to you that will actually change how you go through hard times, and in fact, it might be the very thing that allows you to get through what right now you're going through.

I'm talking about the thing that maybe one or two or three people maybe know.

In fact, maybe nobody even knows.

In fact, maybe you raised up that light stick just a minute ago and that was the first time in any way you expressed.

This has been a struggle for me.

The word is lament.

Can we all say the word lament together?

Ready, lament, lament it's not a word we use a whole lot in our American culture, right, we don't use the word lament very much.

What is it?

Lament is an honest prayer in pain to God that leads us to trusting God.

That's what lament is.

Now we're in this series called Stability how to Emotionally Thrive in an Emotionally Unhealthy World.

And you will never, ever, ever emotionally thrive if you don't learn how to lament and cry out to God in our pain, not if, but when you experience sufferings and hardships.

And the thing about lament prayers is they're not very pretty, they're raw, they're honest, they're unfiltered.

These are prayers, my friends, that are not rated G, if you know what I'm saying.

In fact, lament prayers, they aren't about sounding spiritual, they're about being real with God.

And here's what we know as Jesus followers.

We know that God is sovereign, meaning he's all powerful and he's in control.

We know that.

We also know that we live in a broken world and we experience the brokenness of sin in our lives.

And what lament is?

Lament is what we do in the space between experiencing suffering that comes along with the brokenness of the world and the brokenness of sin and trusting in God's sovereignty.

Here's what happens for some of us.

We have this space and we don't know what to do with it.

We think I follow Jesus, I trust him, I know he's all powerful, but I'm experiencing this over here and because we don't know how to lament, we don't know what to do with this space here.

It often gets filled with bitterness and cynicism and anger and we wonder why we don't live joy-filled lives that God's called us and wants us to live.

It's because we have this space and what God has done is God has given us lament, the gift of lament, to know what's new in the space between knowing God's all-powerful and God's in control, but also the brokenness of this world.

So here's what we're going to do.

I want to show you how to lament, because for most of us, our parents didn't teach us how to do this.

In my house we didn't talk about this kind of stuff.

Everything's okay, brush it off.

But God in the Psalms gives us a pathway to lament, which is a pathway to emotional healing.

Now, somebody, I'm going to tell it to you right now what they are, and then we're going to go through the text and then we'll put a magnifying glass on each one.

Okay, so here we go.

Here's what lament begins with Turning to God, I am turning to God.

I am bringing my complaint to God.

I am going to be honest and I'm going to identify what is my complaint.

God, this person mistreated me.

God, I did the right thing and it still went wrong.

God, I was innocent and this person took advantage of me.

I'm bringing my complaint to God.

I'm turning, I'm bringing my complaint.

I'm asking boldly for help God, help me.

And then I'm choosing to God.

I'm turning, I'm bringing my complaint.

I'm asking boldly for help God, help me.

And then I'm choosing to trust.

This is the steps of lament, and this can be the pathway that allows you to get through what you're going through.

So we're going to pick it up in Psalm 13, and at least one-third of the 150 Psalms in case you didn't know, there's 150 Psalms, it's the longest book in the Bible At least one-third of these are Psalms of lament.

So if you're ready for the word today, would you say amen?

This is what he says in Psalm 13, verse number one.

The psalmist says how long, lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

He felt forgotten by God.

He says how long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day?

How long will my enemy dominate me?

Have you ever felt like God's forgotten you?

Have you ever had anxious concerns within you and it seems like negative thoughts in your mind every day?

He turns to God, he complains to God.

These anxious concerns are within me.

He says in verse three consider me in answer, lord, my God.

Restore brightness to my eyes, otherwise I will sleep in death.

He says God, give brightness, like give me health, give me strength, or else I'm going to die.

How's that for a bold, like, very clear prayer God, give me strength right now.

God, give me health or I'm dead.

He says my enemy, verse four he'll say I've triumphed over him and my foes will rejoice because I'm shaken.

And he gets to verse number five and he says a very, very powerful word God, I feel like you've forgotten me.

God, I have this anxious thoughts.

God, I have this agony, all these things.

He says verse five.

Verse five starts with what word?

The word is but.

But I have.

What's that word?

But I have trusted in the government leaders and the new president, if it.

But I have trusted in my ability to be strong because I just got my.

But I have trusted in my insight and my knowledge because I'm just you know, I'm just smart.

No, he says, I have trusted in your faithful.

Let's say that last word together You're faithful.

The next word you're faithful, love my heart.

That's what he says.

My heart will rejoice in your deliverance.

I will sing to the Lord because he's treated me generously.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I read this text and I'm like it seems like it's a different person from verse 1 to verse number 6.

Verse 1, what's he say?

He says God, you forget me.

You're like hiding from me.

It's like I'm playing hide-and-go-seekers so I can't find you anywhere.

Why are you hiding your face from me?

And then verse 6, he says I will sing to the Lord because you have treated me generously.

How did he get from verse 1 to verse 6?

He lamented.

On the surface, it seems like lamenting, complaining, is the opposite of what he gets to in verse 6, which is praise.

It seems like lamenting and complaining is completely different than praise.

In fact, a Christian therapist told me when I was going through the hardest season of my life.

She said, nate, you're so quick to circumvent your lamenting.

She said you go straight to praising God and praising God is very, very important and praising God matters, she said, but you're circumventing your lamenting.

She said you're circumventing the grief that you have in you because it's painful and you don't want to touch it.

So what you're doing is you're spiritually bypassing by going straight to a Bible verse or going straight to praise, which is a good thing to go to that.

But the problem is is there's things in here that you need to address and there's grief that you need to express to God.

And lament is actually the pathway to praise, because this is what it does it leads you through emotional brokenness and disappointment.

Can we get the next slide up To the place of seeing the character of God?

Clearly, this is what lament does.

Lament allows me to emotionally process some of these things and here's why I was hesitant to open up to God, because when I looked in here it wasn't pretty, it was ugly, and I'm thinking, man.

I mean I know I could talk to God about anything, but can I really talk to God about anything?

Can I really share that?

And can I just encourage y'all this morning to say be real with God, because he can handle it.

I just want to sit in that for a second.

God can handle what's going on in your heart.

God can handle the pain.

God can handle the issues that you're facing right now.

God can handle what you're feeling right now and you feel like, no, I can't express this, I can't tell anybody, because last time I did, that person said something and I was feeling judged.

You can talk to God about what's going on, because last time I did, that person said something and I was feeling judged.

You can talk to God about what's going on.

You can lament to him and it's the pathway that's going to get you to praise, because it's going to allow you to process some of those things that's happening.

And here's what I want to do I want to put on a magnifying glass and I want to look closely at these four steps of lament, because we have to have to grasp these guys.

We have to grasp these because it's going to allow us to get through what we're going through and it's going to allow us to I would use these words grieve well and suffer well, when suffering is things we experience.

Here's the first thing we do, we turn to God.

The psalmist.

He didn't brush it off, he didn't run from the suffering and almost take out a guitar right there.

He didn't experience this and say I'm just, I'm going to medicate myself on porn or alcohol or drugs or Netflix.

By the way, that stuff works right for a while.

That's why we do it.

He didn't medicate.

He says I am turning to God.

Now here's what this means.

When he turned to God, it means he said I'm not going to turn to all these other things.

I'm not going to turn first and foremost to a TikTok, tiktoker or YouTuber for the help that I'm going through, or Google, although there's nothing wrong with getting information about things and growing.

He says the first place I'm going is I'm turning to God.

And you know what that requires Humility.

When I turn to God.

This is what I'm saying I'm not strong enough, I can't fix it, and that's hard for us to do.

And when you think about the message of Christianity, and when you think about the message of Christianity, it takes humility to become a follower of Jesus.

What's the message of Christianity?

Every one of us are sinners before a holy God.

That's where the gospel starts.

We're sinners before a holy God.

We have done things.

We have said things.

We have done things.

We have said things, we have thought things.

We have done things.

That has broken God's law Every single one of us.

And what we naturally like to do is we compare ourselves with people that aren't quite as good as us.

Right, I do it.

So we think I'm a good person and in many ways we are good people, but we're still sinful people.

We're broken because of sin.

I heard a powerful testimony from a man this week.

He said this.

He said I was raised in the church my whole life.

He said I was around church ministry my whole life.

He said I knew church, I knew it all.

He said it was not until I was a young adult, for the first time in my life, I realized I was actually.

Here's the thing you will never see yourself in need of a Savior until you first see yourself as a sinner.

And when we see ourself as a sinner, we realize that before a holy God, that we are sinful.

It is then when we realize our need for Jesus, who is the perfect sacrifice, who died on the cross for us.

And it takes humility, because what we have to do is transfer our trust from everything else onto Jesus alone for our salvation.

It's not I'm trusting in my baptism for my salvation.

It's not I'm trusting in my church membership for salvation.

It's I'm trusting in Jesus alone.

And it takes humility to do that.

And it takes humility to not just become a follower of Jesus, but it takes humility for us, in the pain and suffering, to say God, I'm turning to you because I can't figure this out on my own.

And when we turn to God, the second step is we complain to God.

This is what he says how long will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

He's bluntly identifying and communicating.

Identifying and communicating what is going on in his heart.

Suffering can create questions and part of lamenting is bringing humble, pain-filled questions to God.

God, this is where things are.

When you walked in this morning, our ushers gave you a handout.

I want you guys to pull it out just for a second.

Which can I just say?

As you're pulling it out, don't our ushers do a tremendous job?

Every Sunday morning, can we put our hands together for our ushers?

They crush it.

They really do, they do, they do great.

Even Ron Dijon most of the time he does great.

No, I'm just kidding Ron's great.

By the way, there's notes on the front if you guys want to fill in the blanks.

But what I really wanted to do is I want to point this out to the back, in the back, because I don't want this just to be something that you're hearing me talk about.

Maybe you take a picture of this or something of that nature, but I want to show you how this can play out in your actual life.

So here's an example of a lament psalm, another psalm.

We're looking at Psalm 13 this morning.

But Psalm 86 is another lament, and you see what he does.

You see how he turns to God, you see how he brings this complaint, you see how he asks boldly, you see how he chooses to trust.

And then you look on the last column, what those prayers actually looked like.

What could those lament prayers look like for you?

It's me sharing what's going on in my heart, and when we are complaining to God, the complaining is not an end of itself.

It's not like, hey, I'm just going to complain and that's the goal.

No, no, that's not the goal.

The goal is for us to share what's on our heart and that's going to get us to the place of trusting God.

But the next step that we have to take, we have to take the step of asking boldly number three for help.

This is what he says.

He says consider me and answer.

Lord, my God, restore brightness to my eyes, otherwise I will sleep in death.

How's that for shooting it straight with God?

God, this is what I need A lot of times when we're suffering in a hard time.

The reason why we have a hard time asking God boldly for help and talk to him is because one of two things happen.

Either we're overwhelmed with despair and we're like why even ask?

There's no hope, or we're in a place of denial, like it's all good, everything's fine.

We don't need to be in despair.

We don't need to be in denial either.

What we need to do is we need to ask God boldly for help.

God, I need your strength.

God, I need your guidance.

God, I need your purposes to come through this situation.

God, I need you to teach me what you're trying to get me to learn.

I cannot count how many times in my life I've been praying.

I'm like God.

I know you want to teach me something, but I just can't figure it out.

Would you just show me, like, what are you trying to do?

And it's us asking boldly for god to god.

One thing I love about kids is kids are just so, so bold, aren't they I was talking to?

Or the kid in kingdom kids, and we love the next generation around here.

We say they're not the church of tomorrow but the church of today.

And I was asking one of them.

I, hey, man, how's school been going for you?

He looks at me bad, been going bad.

Okay, what's been going on?

My teacher's been mean to me lately.

This person is picking on me at school and then had like two or three other things and I'm like, okay, tell me what's really going on, all right.

And I said, hey, have you told your mom and dad about it?

Like, do they kind of know what's going on at school?

This little guy said yes, I have, because I'm letting them know everything.

I was like there you go, buddy.

I was like that's what you're supposed to do.

Good for you, man, tell your mom and dad everything.

And I was thinking just like he's bold with his parents telling them exactly what's going on.

We need some of that boldness with God telling him exactly what's going on, and we need a little more childlike boldness.

Like boldness.

We turn to God, we complain to God, we ask boldly and then the fourth step is this is we choose to trust?

We choose to trust.

He lays everything out before God and then he starts with verse 5.

He says but, but I choose to trust in your faithful love.

I choose to trust in your faithful love.

Earlier in the psalm, it seems like things are hopeless.

It seems like things are all over the place.

And he gets to this place in verse 5.

He's like yes, but I choose to trust in your love.

You know what trust is, guys.

Trust is active patience.

Trust if we can get the next slide up is active patience.

This is what trust is in lamenting.

When we are lamenting to God and we're sharing things in our heart to God and we're telling God what's in our hearts, it's God.

I am patiently waiting on you while I'm actively trusting and obeying you.

Look what he trusts in.

He says I trust in your faithful love.

He doesn't say I'm trusting in my ability to fix things.

He doesn't say I'm trying to manifest this.

If I can just manifest this, it will happen, which, by the way I can manifest.

I'm going to be in the NBA next week.

It ain't going to happen, y'all.

And manifestation is not a biblical principle, it's not a biblical truth.

We have a God that can make all things happen, but we don't have the power to do that.

He says I'm not gonna manifest this.

He says I'm not gonna turn into new age spirituality because I prayed to God.

It didn't work.

No, he says I am trusting in God's faithful love.

I'm not trusting in a government leader.

I'm not trusting in my circumstances changing.

My trust is in God's faithful love.

And what active patience is?

It's God, I'm trusting you, but I'm going to actively serve you.

While I'm trusting you Like I'm going to actively serve Some of you guys are waiting for your life to be perfect before you get serious about your faith.

Can I just say we need to spiritually grow up because life will never be perfect.

Some of us we are waiting for all the I's to be crossed and the T's to be dotted before we start getting faithful to the house of God.

Can I just say we need to be faithful to the house of God no matter what happens.

You know what I'm saying.

Some of us are waiting for everything to happen, and when God does this for me, you can't put God in debt, we can't barter with God.

And this is what trust is.

Trust is to say God, I'm waiting for you and I'm going to be patient waiting for you, but I'm going to be active in my service to you while I'm waiting for you.

Could somebody say amen.

This trust is in God's faithful love.

How do we know God loves us?

Come on, man, thank you.

How do we know God loves us?

We look, we hit the rewind button and we go back to episode number one, 2,000 years ago, outside the city of Jerusalem, where a sinless man named Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sin and gave his life for us.

And we don't base God's love, y'all on what happened to us, but on what God did for us by sending Jesus down to this earth and dying for us.

And this is why the gospel doesn't just save us, but it shapes us, strengthens us and guides us.

Because, my friend, oh my goodness, when we get in a hard time and we feel like nobody loves us and we feel like there's no place to go, that we are not loved, we got to look back to the city of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, when Jesus stretched out his arms wide and said I loved you so much, I died for you.

And let that anchor your heart when circumstances are overwhelming.

Let that anchor your heart when life is all over the place.

This is what you have to do.

You have to choose to trust in God's faithful love.

Don't trust in me.

Don't trust in what happens in November in the election.

Don't trust in things around you.

We're going to be a people that are going to trust in me.

Don't trust in what happens in November in the election.

Don't trust in things around you.

We're going to be a people that are going to trust in God's faithful love.

Because that is what lament looks like.

That's what I'm going to do.

We've already given you guys some space in this service earlier to pray and talk to God about whatever you're going through.

As we've looked closer at these things.

Turning to God, complaining to God, asking boldly for God's help, trusting God this is what I'm going to invite you to do.

I'm going to invite us into a minute of prayer and for us to say which one of these do we need to do.

For some of us, we need to turn to God, for the first time in a long time, you find yourself here in a church building.

For the first time in a long time, can I just say you're welcome here, exactly as you are, and it's time today.

Just turn to God.

Some of us, we need to complain to God.

God, this is what I need to grieve to you For some of us, we need to come over here.

We need to say God, I've done my fair share of complaining, but it's time for me to trust, to trust, to actively obey.

I've done those things.

Time for me to trust and obey.