Honest Confession

Heart exploring our emotions in the Psalms.

And so we're this morning, we're going to be in Psalm 13.

If you do want to go ahead and open your Bibles to Psalm 13, we uh have Bibles in the back.

If you don't have one, we'd love to have that be a gift for you that you can have God's word, you can take it home.

Uh, we also uh encourage you to download an app if you want to follow along that way, or we'll actually have all the words on the screens too, so you can follow along there as well.

But we want to make it uh convenient for you and we'll make it accessible to you as well.

We also have fill-in notes on our app.

So if you downloaded that app like we talked about earlier, and you click on the sermon for today under North, there's notes that you can actually follow along with uh during the sermon.

So that's beneficial for your own private study as well.

Before we dive into the passage this morning, I want to talk about something I'm really excited about, and that's today.

We are kicking off the summer pilot program of Mystio Youth.

Who's excited about that?

Yeah.

I'm super excited to have a student ministry here at Mystio.

We've been talking and dreaming and meeting about what this could look like, and there's a lot where we're still trying to figure that out.

So, like I said, this summer is going to be a pilot program as we seek to discover what Mystio Youth can and should look like.

We know a few things.

We know one, that we believe teenagers need a unique space to process life in the gospel with peers and trusted leaders.

We believe that.

We believe that children's today, one of the biggest struggles that they face is actually engaging the world with a biblical worldview.

One that's not completely informed and developed by culture, but one that's formed and shaped by the authority of God's word.

And so for them to be successful in this world, they're gonna need to have a biblical worldview.

We know they need authentic community, and we know that they need to be equipped so they can be sent out as missionaries into the world around them.

And so we want to start developing these things.

And so we're just gonna do once a month over the summer gatherings, meetups, as we like to call them, where students can hang out here while the parents over at 16 lots eating some pizza and engaging with one another.

Uh, they're gonna stay back here and start to develop and create that space, and more importantly, start to develop and create that trust with one another and with the leaders that we're trying to put in place.

And so that kicks off today.

We've got pizza coming here, we've got all kinds of good stuff for them, and we've already mapped out what the afternoon will look like.

So that's gonna go from 12 to 2 here at Mystio Day North for anybody in sixth through 12th grade, and we're gonna start actually making unique spaces even for those broader age categories inside of the meetup itself.

And so we're really excited to kick that off.

If you are someone who says, Man, I feel like I'm passionate or gifted to be able to disciple youth and disciple teenagers specifically.

We'd love to know about you and we'd love to talk with you about your interests and how you could participate in Mystio Youth.

So make sure you fill out a connect card and drop it off in one of these boxes, or just feel free to email me or come see me at the welcome booth afterwards.

Uh, we'd love to get to know you and see how you might be able to fit within uh Mystio Youth.

And so uh make sure if you're a student, you hang out, start being a part of that.

We're excited to kick it off.

Uh so like I said before, we're in Psalm 13.

And so what we've been trying to do is through this summer, uh, and we just kicked it off last week, like I said, we're trying to understand our emotions.

We are emotional beings, we're created with emotion, and that emotion is not ultimately against us.

That emotion is marred, that emotion has been perverted by sin and by our rebellion, but it intrinsically is not wicked.

In fact, God is an emotional being, and God created his image-bearers in his image with emotion so that through them we might be able to relate to him better.

And so these emotions need redeemed.

And one of the ways that we understand our emotions become redeemed is by submitting them to the word of God, because the word of God is truth, no matter our experience.

And so we have to be able to submit to that.

And that's what we talked about last week through Psalm 1.

But this morning we're in Psalm 13.

So let's make sure that we read the scripture together as a church before we dive into preaching it.

It says this, Psalm 13.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

This is the word of the Lord.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

So this Psalm, Psalm 13, is called a Psalm of Lament.

And when we look at the book of Psalms, we see that actually the first third of the book of Psalms are mostly lament psalms.

These are psalms where we have extenuating and anguishing sorrow and grief because of the experiences and circumstances of our life.

Isn't that amazing?

Out of all of the psalms, almost a third of them are just about lament.

Being honest about our grief.

Being honest about our sorrow.

Lament is something that in our culture and in our church we have dismissed or rejected altogether.

I don't know about you, but I come from a church background where it's not okay to be honest.

In fact, it's contrary to faith.

If you're gonna be a person of faith, then you speak in spite of how you feel.

So you might come in on a Sunday morning and you might say, Hey, how you doing today, brother?

And that brother would say, I'm blessed and highly favored.

When you know that his marriage is falling apart at home.

It's not that the proclamation of what is true is wrong, but often it's in spite of or absent of the honesty of what's going on in your life.

I know I was pricked just a few weeks ago when I was walking and welcoming people here at the congregation, and I shook someone's hand and they said, Hey, how did you have a good week?

And I said, Yeah, I did.

And then I stopped and I came back and said, I'm sorry.

No, I didn't.

I didn't have a good week.

We as a culture, as a church, we often struggle to express our grief and our sorrow.

Maybe it's because we've been hurt so much in our life that we're not going to allow people to see into the experiences of our life because we've built this fortress of protection where our emotions won't hinder us any longer or they won't cause us grief or so or any longer, but we only realize that all we're doing is sweeping things under the rug to where the rug is such a big lump in the middle of it, we can't even set a coffee table on it.

Right?

That's what we do.

We push down, we suppress, we don't deal honestly.

In our culture, we see the same thing.

We can't grieve.

And in fact, we have such fake grieving that it's sick and pathetic.

Something will happen in our world, and for a day you'll change your Facebook profile picture.

You'll say that you're praying for somebody or something that happened when we all know that you just posted the post.

You didn't actually pray.

At least that's the vast majority of our culture.

And then the next thing when something happens, we forgot what happened yesterday.

We don't lament, we don't deal and wrestle honestly with our sorrow and with our grief.

We have a major issue with honesty and authenticity when it comes to our pain and when it comes to our hurt.

Some of us in this congregation have experienced tremendous pain.

We come from a generation that has broken homes left and right, probably more broken homes by statistics than whole homes, where the husband and the wife have stayed together throughout marriage.

I know I'm a product of divorce, and I know many of you are products of divorce, of your experience of the pain and of the hurt.

Some of you have lost loved ones way too soon.

Some of you have lost children that you've had to bury in the ground.

Some of you have lost all of your money, everything you put hope into.

You have experienced pain and you have experienced turmoil in your life, and there's a very real chance that it was not afforded to you the opportunity or the healthy posture to rightly lament that loss.

What is lament?

It's a passionate expression, a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

Here in verses 1 and 2, we see that the psalmist David is lamenting over the feeling that God has abandoned him, and that he's left to himself for counsel and comfort.

In the midst of the pain that you've experienced in your life, in the midst of the hardship and tough times that you've experienced, have you been able ever to be honest, to say, I feel like God has left me?

How would your church family respond to that?

How would your own family respond to that?

How would they, well, no, no, no, he hasn't.

And they might do good and they might do well, but they would not allow you the opportunity to passionately express, I feel like he's left me.

I feel like I've been abandoned by God.

Where was the comfort when my loved one died?

Where was the peace when my home was a war zone?

Where was the promises of God?

Where was his tangible and felt presence when I was in the lowest valley that I could possibly be?

He wasn't there, and you didn't have the healthy place or you didn't have the right space to be able to just be honest with that, is how you feel.

That's your experience.

David is doing this.

He's saying four times how long.

This question of impatience, how long?

So many of us wrestle with patience, right?

We want God to move now, we want God to move on our terms, we want God to do as we have prayed and asked for Him to do, and we can sit there in our impatience and like the psalmist say, how long?

David says, How long will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long will you allow me to wrestle with myself?

How long will my circumstances defeat me?

Many of us can relate to that crying question, God, how long?

How long are you gonna keep me a mother who can't bear children?

How long are you gonna keep me in this state of poverty and poorness?

How long are you gonna keep me single and without companionship?

How long are you going to have me here?

How long?

This cry of data is repeated four times in this song.

And twice it's called in response to God's presence.

David is a man who delights in communion and relationship with God, and he's grieved by God's perceived absence.

Will you forget me forever?

David cries out in the midst of desolate places, feeling abandoned and alone.

He desires to once again feel the comfort and joy of God that comes from being known by him.

Because to be known by God means to be loved, to be delighted in, to be in relationship with.

David isn't speaking to a God who has lost his memory, but crying out to a God whom he has lost relationship with.

David cries, God, how long will you forget me?

He cries about God hiding his face.

You see, to see God's face, to see him and view him face to face is for a child to know and see the loving smile of his father.

David desires to see the smile of his father's face that brings so much comfort and joy to his soul.

He's restless without it.

With these two positions of the Father, David is only left to feel as though God has removed himself from his present experience.

He's crying out to a God who is absent, who is not aware of his pain and struggle, and worse still, who is not aware of David himself.

To think about the pain that we experience in life, to think about the hardships and the losses that we experience.

It's one thing to wonder where God is in the midst of them.

It's another thing to see to think and ponder, God, do you even see me?

Do you see the pain in my heart?

Do you see the struggle of my soul?

Do you see the turmoil that's constantly at war within me?

Do you see me, God?

David calls that he has to take counsel himself.

He, with the absence of his father and with the absence of the presence of God in his experience, he's saying, How long then do I have to take counsel in myself?

I am filled with anxiety and worry and fear and doubt.

You see, with the feeling of abandonment, David's heart and soul grows sorrowful, unable to escape the thoughts of his present state.

He finds no comfort apart from relationship with God.

And he longs to be healed and remedied by the presence of his Father.

Many of us can relate to that.

When we're in hard times, our mind is our greatest enemy.

When we fear, when we feel like we have to do this all alone, when we feel like we have to do this in our own strength, when we feel like there's no one that's going to be at my aid or at my side as I'm going through this, especially God Himself will not be present with me, then we are restless.

We experience even greater turmoil because we have to take counsel in ourselves.

And it's constantly being bulleted with fears and doubts and all of these what-if questions, what if the possible worst experience thing could happen to me.

And then David said, How long shall my enemies be exalted?

Not only is David wrestling with internal turmoil, but he is wrestling with external circumstances.

He knows that God alone is his victory, but with his felt absence, he is believing that his enemies will actually conquer him.

We, like David, have encountered such hardships and struggles that we believe we will be overcome by our circumstances, that we have been abandoned to fight alone, and that God has removed his blessing and presence from us.

I know I've been in those positions.

I know where I've been in places where I felt like I had to do this on my own.

That I didn't have anybody beside me, I didn't have anybody before me, there was no one behind me.

I was going to fight this battle on my own.

And that was when the most fear just crashed like a wave into my soul.

I've got to do this by myself.

And I know I can't, because I know me, and I know that I'm gonna fail, and I know that I'm not gonna do this right, and I feel like I've been abandoned.

So David in the first two Psalms has this lament, this release of grief and sorrow.

And in the second two verses, he switches from this expression of grief and sorrow to this prayer and petition of God.

You see, in the middle of his feeling of abandonment, David petitions the Lord to move and draw near to him before he's actually overcome by his circumstances.

David petitions God to extend mercy to him.

He prays for God to simply consider him and in answering him to give him faith to see that his circumstances are not his reality.

He knows that if he allows for his circumstances and emotions to dictate his reality, he will soon see death.

Death of hope and death of soul.

He doesn't want his circumstances to have the last word, the final victory.

He needs faith to see God for who he says that he is, so that he might be comforted in the midst of experienced turmoil.

See, that's where David finds himself.

He's at the end of his robe where he can't take anymore.

He cries out to God, God, let my eyes light up.

Let them see who you are.

Don't let me remain in this darkened state.

Don't let me remain in this experience of death and destruction, but let my eyes light up so that I might see you rightly.

And there I will find life.

When I can see God for who He has declared and reveal Himself to be, no matter what I am going through in my life, I will be met with comfort and peace and joy and ultimately victory.

So out of this prayer, for simply God to consider David, he goes into a time of confession.

Not confession of his own sin, not confession of his own shortcomings, but he moves into confession of who God is.

In the end, David rests on the confession of who God is as faithful and good, rather than on his current feeling of God as absent and neglectful.

He says, God, I have I have trusted, but I have trusted in your steadfast love.

Again, there is an aspect where David's confession of who God is is in contradiction to his certain experience that he's feeling, his circumstance that he is dealing with now in his life.

It's seemingly contradictive.

But if we can be honest with God about who we are and what we're experiencing, we can only do that if we are able and willing to be faithful to God about who he has revealed himself to be.

And so David, in the midst of lament and agony, he says, But I have remembered and trusted in your steadfast love.

What is David talking about?

David is talking about God's covenant love for his people.

Not based on the receiver of the love, but it's based on the giver of the love.

You see, David is making a proclamation not about himself, but about who God is.

God's steadfast love is a love that is in spite of who we are or how we live our lives.

God has declared that he will set his affection and love on a particular people who nothing we can do, nothing we experience in this world, nothing that can come against us could ever separate us from it.

God's love is relentless for those of whom he has placed his affection on.

And David said, I know that I'm weary, I know that I'm suffering, I know that I'm experiencing pain, and I know that I'm feeling like you've left me and forgotten me, but God, I will stand and declare that my name is engravened on your palm because you have placed your love on me.

And so David can confess rightly and full of faith in the midst of his darkest times that God's love is steadfast even when David's soul is wavering uncontrollably.

He says, God, I will rejoice in your salvation.

God's salvation is ultimate no matter what circumstances we might face.

He saves those whom he loves.

To those whom he has made a covenant, he will redeem.

And we can rejoice in the salvation of the Lord because it has overcome all of our enemies.

There are times in our lives where we will face and lose battles.

But there will never be a moment where we experience a loss of the war for our soul and for our joy, because it's found and rested in the victory of Christ who has overcome the world.

Christ has overcome.

And David can rejoice in God's salvation because, again, it's God's salvation.

It's not David's salvation, it's God's salvation.

He understands the sovereignty of God, he understands the purposes of God, that God is in pursuit.

For his glory.

And David is a factor in that pursuit because God has said to David, I will make a covenant with you.

I will put my love and affection upon you, and I will save you from your enemies, not for your sake, but for my sake, for thine name, for my glory.

And David realizes that he is an eternal benefactor of the pursuit of God for his own glory.

And he can rejoice because God is the perfect Father who gives to us perfect gifts, which is fully and holy himself.

You see, there's a lot of times where when we experience loss and we experience pain, we have to come to a place and wrestle with a place that it is quite possibly God trying to get you to see him more deeply and more beautifully.

It's trying to get you to trust him more intimately.

It's trying to get you to awaken your eyes that you may see him for who he is.

Because when we have God, we have everything.

You see, it's not this man or this being or this creator who has some type of issues where he needs attention and he needs to make sure that we are the ones giving him all the praise and all the glory.

No, God needs nothing.

What God realizes is that when we are fully delighting in who he is in his being, we are at our ultimate possible joy.

It is him who we need, and so God will do what he has to that we might have him.

He doesn't need us, we definitely desperately need him.

And so David says, in response to the fact that he has trusted in the steadfast love of God and that he has rejoiced in his salvation, he says, I will sing.

David is choosing to respond not to his circumstances, but to who God is in spite of his circumstances.

When pondering the character and promises of God, the only faithful response that we have is worship for who he is and what he's done for us.

We are only left to rightfully worship him.

And David said, You have dealt bountifully with me.

No matter what David faces, he knows that God has already done for him more than he could ever deserve.

To know God and to have him is not just sufficient, but it's ultimately better.

To know God and to have him is not just sufficient, it's ultimately better.

I love the story of Job.

And Job who experiences great loss.

His family is killed, his livestock is destroyed, his property is brought to ruin, and Job, he wrestled with that.

He wrestled with what is God doing to me?

What am I experiencing?

What is happening?

And Job is left in resolve, covered in boils and sackclock, sack, sackcloth, and ashes.

He says, I came into this world with nothing, I will go out of this world with nothing, but I have God.

I have God.

I don't need the stuff, I don't need the things.

I have Him.

Job was found faithful because his delight was ultimately in the giver of the gifts rather than in the gifts themselves.

And the Bible tells us that God will give us, He has promised to give us more than we could ever think or imagine.

The problem is with our hearts, too often we think that that's stuff: money, prosperity, wealth, status, possession.

What if we thought that that more than we ever thought or imagined was actually God Himself?

And that eternally we found ultimate joy and delight in just his being.

In a relationship with the perfect Father who has set his covenant and steadfast love upon those who are his children.

So here's the main idea.

In this passage, as we start to flush this out, we can see that this we can be honest with God when we are faithful to who he is.

We can be honest with God when we are faithful to who he is.

Listen, God is not offended when we are honest with how we feel.

He is offended when we resolve in unbelief of who he is.

God can take it.

You can yell at him, you can scream at him, you can shout in anger and lament and grief and sorrow at him.

He's a big boy.

He can take it.

You can be honest with how you feel if you're committed to being faithful to who he is.

Because actually, there's only hope, there is only comfort in our extreme expressions of grief and sorrow if we know at the other end of our darkness is perfect and brilliant light.

That's why we can be honest.

That's why we can be honest about the absence of the people that we love, the people who have abandoned us, the people who have left us, whether it be through sin or death, whether it be that we feel like we have lost everything, we work so hard to earn this certificate from this university, and I'm not even using it, and I'm buried in student debt, and I don't know what I'm gonna do next.

I don't know if I'm gonna be a good mother, I don't know if I'm gonna be a good father.

I don't know.

You want to talk about me?

How I wrestle with am I gonna be a good pastor?

Am I gonna be some young punk kid who I knew I used to be and not be able to faithfully shepherd and be obedient to God and at the same time love my wife and love my children?

I'm full of fear, and it's time that I start being honest about it, and I start to start being grieving and and and and and dealing with it rightly as long as I'm committed that on the other side God has called me, he has placed his affection upon me, this is his church, it's not mine, and that his presence is in the midst of my household.

I can be honest with God because he's not offended with my honesty.

He's offended with my when I commit to resolve and unbelief of who he says that he is.

And what's our story?

How does this affect us uniquely?

Some of us, some of us actually believe that our circumstances are in response to our actions.

Some of us believe that our circumstances are in direct response to our actions.

We believe we suffer a perceived absence of God because we have sinned, or because we have not done enough to earn his presence.

Some things that we have to walk out through this.

Number one, Jesus suffered.

Jesus suffered and he perfectly obeyed God.

There are times, and the Bible is true, when it says that we reap what we sow.

There are consequences to sin.

We must face those consequences.

But our suffering is not only and always understood through our rebellion.

Jesus perfectly obeyed God, and he suffered.

And there are many men throughout the scriptures, though they were sinful, knew who they were as children of God.

Blameless, just, upright, perfect in his eyes because of the finished work of Christ.

And they knew that they were being as faithful as they could be to the finished work of Christ and expanding his kingdom throughout this earth, and they still suffered great loss.

Even the story of Job, if we go back to, remember what God did?

The devil came to God and said, What about him?

And God said, He's a faithful servant.

Do what you want, because I know he'll worship me.

God did not allow that to happen to Job so that to punish him for his sin or punish him for the ways that he fell short.

By no means.

God did it to Job so that Job's faith and his his pleasure and delight of who God is would increase and grow.

That he would trust him even more deeply, that his faithful service would be expounded and made bigger to who God is.

All that God does is for our good.

Romans 8 promises us that.

That to those who love him, he works all things for good.

We have to realize that it is not just because of our actions that we might experience suffering.

Suffering is not always punishment.

Suffering often is grace to have God more fully.

I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon.

He says this.

He's a preacher from London in the 1800s.

He says, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.

Think about the way that he is embracing hardship and suffering.

Because that that circumstance, that trial, has made him love Jesus more deeply.

So some of us believe that our circumstances are in response to our actions.

You believe that what you're going through is because of what you've done.

And I want you to know, Saint, that is more than likely not true.

Not that we don't reap what we sow, but God, to his children, whom he has established his covenant love upon, will face suffering and loss and hard circumstances so that we, our eyes might be lit up like the psalmist prayed to be, and we might see God more fully.

And we might trust him and love him deeper.

Some of us, though, some of us believe to be honest with God is to have an absence of faith.

Some of us believe to be honest with God is to have an absence of faith.

If we say that we're struggling, if we say that life is hard, if we say that we're going through something, we believe that it communicates in absence of faith to the people around us.

And so we're terrified to be honest.

Because what are they going to say?

Church, what have we done?

What have we done to cause people to feel that way?

What have we done that people can't come in and just be honest with how they feel and what they're experiencing?

I'm not saying having some gripe session.

I'm not saying leaving it and just complaining and bickering and murmuring, murmuring.

I'm talking about being honest and healthful and in a healthy posture, express grief and sorrow, but then point them and shepherd them and walk alongside them so that they see the beauty and depth of the gospel.

Church, what have what culture have we created where people can't come in and say, I'm hurting?

I feel like God's abandoned me.

And why can't we be Jesus with flesh on him?

Why can't we be people who are ever-present, carriers of the Holy Spirit, bringing comfort and peace to the people who are hurting in our midst?

You see, honesty and faith are not in opposition to one another.

In fact, I think faith is built more strongly in the midst of honest confession.

When you can be real about who you are, you can start being real about who God says He is.

But if you want to keep being fake, your idolatry and your false God that you serve for self-preservation and for a reflection of some status that you don't really have will cause you to create a false God who doesn't actually relate to you, who doesn't actually see you in the midst of your circumstance, whose presence can do nothing to get you victory.

And you'll stay there.

You'll stay in your sorrow, you'll stay in your grief, and you'll have a shell that no one and nothing is going to pierce through.

It is not, I would say and submit that it is not until we're honest with ourselves can we truly know and have a relationship with God.

Isn't that fundamentally true?

Until we know that we are sinners, we cannot know God as a Savior.

If we want to continue going on in our lives, that we don't have sin, that we don't sin as people, and I'm talking about in our very beginning relationship with God, when we were dead in our trespasses, when we were rebellious against God, when we were slaves to our depravity, when if we weren't honest about who we are, we are not good people.

The Bible says, let you try to search the earth and find one who is good.

Guess what?

You'll find none.

All are wicked, all are unfaithful, all rebel against me.

And it's until we're able to be honest that I'm a part of that rebellious movement.

Am I able to come to God rightly and say, but you have loved me with an unfailing and steadfast love, and I will be your child.

I will submit to your kingship and your lordship.

I will no longer act in rebellion, but I will fall in line with who you are, who you've declared you are as king of all creation, and I'll be in relationship with you.

See, until we're honest with who we are, we cannot know God rightly.

But here's the beauty of the gospel.

Our hope this morning, church, is this that Jesus experienced abandonment from God to ensure that his children would never have to.

Jesus experienced the abandonment from the Father to ensure that his children would never have to.

You see, David cried out, God, you have forgotten me.

God, you have turned your face from me.

And we as people have experienced that.

We've perceived or felt that.

But the beauty of the gospel is this what we can stand on is that on the cross, as Jesus was standing in our place, being put to death through crucifixion, he in some of his final breaths cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And Jesus had his back, his the Father turned his back on his only son.

He hid his face from the iniquity and sin that was placed upon his shoulders, so that us as children would never ever have to face the abandonment of God the Father.

Jesus took our place.

And Jesus cried out the psalm of Psalm 22, 1.

It says this, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?

You see, David didn't know necessarily what he was doing when he was pinning those words in Psalm 22.

But he was setting the stage and scene to where he would be the one pinning them in lament and anguish and grief, realizing that there would be one who would truly call them out, taking his place of abandonment, taking his place of feeling forsaken, so that he might be brought intimately and eternally near in a loving, perfect, and pure relationship with the Father.

Jesus experienced our abandonment so that we would never have to.

That's our hope, church, this morning.

And so what do we do about this?

As we walk this out and we try to respond in action and faith practice, what do we do?

I think number one is just be honest with your emotions and experience.

Church, let's be honest.

Look, we're in community together, we're in church together, and there's so many times we don't even know what's going on in each other's lives because we just want to stay at the surface.

How are things going?

Going good.

Oh, good, man.

Did you have a good week?

Had a good week?

Yeah.

Weather was nice, sure was.

Sweet.

All right, gonna go grab a coffee.

Cool, man.

Right?

We we do this all the time.

Like we just stay surface level and like like wreck somebody's world when they say, hey man, how you doing?

I say, I'm doing horrible.

How about that?

I haven't slept good in weeks about a house with a train behind it.

You know what that does to me as a human being?

I don't sleep good.

It makes me restless, it makes me anger.

You know what else I'm doing?

I'm working like crazy because I'm so scared I'm gonna screw this whole thing up.

You know what else I'm doing?

I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

It's horrible.

But I know God's good.

Will you proclaim the gospel to me?

Will you strengthen and build me up as the church is called to do?

That I have hope in who Jesus is, not in what circumstances I'm facing.

I mean, some of us we're on the verge of maybe losing homes.

Some of us are on the verge of maybe losing, whoa, my balance.

Some of us are on the verge of maybe losing uh our marriages or our children.

Some of us are on the verge of losing the things that we count so precious, and yet we'll come in here week after week with a smile on our face and say, everything is good.

No, it's not.

Be honest with your emotions and be honest with your experience because it is only when we are honest with those things can we be honest about who God truly is.

Number two, be persistent in prayer.

No matter what you're going through, petition God to move.

Because you might feel like he's abandoned you, you might feel like he's hidden his face from you, but he hears and delights in every prayer that you utter.

It doesn't matter how eloquent it is, it doesn't matter how aligned with Scripture it is, you're a child crying out to his father to please help me.

And he knows.

He knows what you need best, he knows how he's going to move, he knows exactly what he's gonna do.

But we need to condition our hearts through prayer.

Be persistent in prayer.

This is something that has been um I've been learning throughout the last several weeks.

So every Monday morning, I've missed one or two, but uh most every Monday morning I come here and I pray for uh from 9 to 9.30, usually, uh, for all of you.

And I pray for most of you by name.

I pray for your children that they would love God and that they would be saved.

I pray for your households, that they'd be full of peace.

And man, there's times in these last three months I've been hurt by some people.

And it wasn't like intentional to hurt me, but that's just my experience.

But when I pray for them by name, God bless them.

Give them what they're looking for.

Hopefully that's you.

Lord, fill their soul with your presence.

I pray for their blessing, I pray for their good.

I pray, Lord, that you would do wondrous miracles through them and that you would advance your kingdom through them.

Man, you know what that does to me?

It makes me able to be actually honest about what God says about them rather than how I feel about them.

It actually equips me to pray for when I pray for them, it equips me to love them the way I'm supposed to love them.

Even when I feel like I don't want to.

So don't just be, don't, don't just be persistent in prayer, begging God to do what you want him to do, but use prayer in the persistence of it to allow him to shape you to who he's making you to be.

And then lastly, be confessing God's revealed character and promises.

Look, God is a God who is fully and utterly dependent upon his word being true.

You see, we can confess God's promises, we can confess God's character, because if God ever did not come through on one of his promises, if he ever failed to be who he said he would be, he would fail to be God entirely.

You see, the word of God is yes and amen.

It returns to him, not void, but full of exactly what he said that it Accomplish.

Everything God declares will come to pass because he is God and everything is riding on that.

You see, when he says that I made a covenant, I made a promise with those of whom I would place my affection on.

He said, I searched and found no other name but my own upon which I could make this promise.

God's name is on the line if he isn't who he says that he is, if he doesn't do what he promised he would do.

And he said, I will give you a comforter.

The Spirit would come and be your peace and your guidance.

He would teach you all things.

Christ says that I have given up everything so that I might acquire you.

We are the apple of his eye.

We are the treasure hidden in the field.

We are the beloved God, uh children of God whom he bankrupt heaven to purchase.

And we can stand on that.

Because if there's one drop, one note, one letter of that out of place, God fails to be who he says he is.

And our assurance is not on us, our assurance is on his very name.

So confess who God has revealed in his character and his promises because they are yes and amen to his children.

Church, you can read every promise in this Bible and apply it to yourself.

And you can read every promise in this word right here, and you can say, God, if you fail to do this, you're not God.

God, if you fail to demonstrate this character, you're not God anymore.

And be surprised and shocked and amazed at how he comes through every single time.

He might not do it in the way that you want him to, he might not do it in the way that you desire.

Praise God, because our desires and the ways that we want to can often be twisted and manipulated because of our fallen state.

But God knows that what is perfect and just for you, and he will execute it perfectly and just according to his promises.

That's the God we serve.

There is nothing that he has declared in his word that we can't stand upon.

In fact, it's the declaration of who he is, is the rock of our foundation.

You see, when Christ looked at Peter and he said, Well, who do they say that I am, Peter?

He said, Well, some say that you're Elijah, some say that you're Moses.

And he looks at Peter and he says, But who do you say that I am?

And he says, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

He says, Peter, blessed are you, because flesh and bone has not revealed that to you, but my Father who is in heaven has revealed that to you.

And upon this rock, not Peter himself, that broken sinner, but upon the confession of Peter's mouth that Christ is the Messiah, that he is the chosen Son of God.

That rock is of what we build our foundation on.

He said the church will be built upon that, and even the gates of hell could not prevail against her.

There is nothing that can separate us, not famine, nor plague, not sword, not disease, nothing, not even ourselves, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And so, church, lament.

Be honest, but be filled with the promises and hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That in our feeling of our abandonment we know with confidence and absolute assurity that we will never be abandoned because Christ was on our behalf.

I want to lead us in a time of response this morning.

As we respond to the word that