The OG Playlist: Songs of GRIEF | 11/02/2025

All right, well, welcome back. If you're watching online this

morning, welcome to you, especially when you're watching

with this live right now, 1116 or in days to come.

We want to invite you to come be with us in person at 115 E of

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All right, and those of you in the room, there are notes on the

back table. If you want to grab those either

to track with me while I'm teaching or to take them home

and have them for devotions for the days to come.

Feel free. They're on the back table.

If you have your Bible, please take and turn to Psalm chapter

Psalms 13 · chapter mention

13. I'm actually starting in the

Psalms this week, which I'll tell you more about in the

moments to come. So this, it's probably about 30%

into your Bible, depending on what you have at the back of

your Bible with maps and concordances and other things.

Psalm chapter 13, Psalms 150 chapters long.

Psalms 13 · chapter mention

So it's quite easy to find in your Bible after well after

before Proverbs. So I'll find it there.

And I'm going to be reading from Psalm chapter 13.

Psalms 13 · chapter mention

This is a song of David and I'll start in verse one and read all

the way through to verse 6. This is the word of God.

David writes how long, O Lord? And that's one question he asked

the second question. His first question is, How long,

O Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

And 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, Lord my

God, and light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest

my enemy say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice

because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your

steadfast love, and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

And I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully

with me. This morning I want to talk to

you about songs of grief. Songs of grief.

Let me pray for us, God. I'm grateful for the wealth and

the diversity of emotions that are expressed throughout the

Psalms. And in these weeks where we're

looking at just vast different emotions and confessions in the

Psalms, we pray that you would grow our love for your Word, a

greater understanding of Your Word and greater adoration for

Your Word as we open our minds and our hearts and our lives to

your direction, to us as you speak to us through the Psalms

and other parts of Scripture. Speak to us this morning as we

look to the songs of grief, we pray.

And Jesus name and everyone loudly together said, Amen.

If you've been out for a few weeks, we're doing a series.

I don't often do long series, but whatever so often I'll do on

it. And so this past summer, I felt

led to do a series of fall in the Psalms.

And I'm loving hearing back from some of you that are reading and

listening to the Psalms more often maybe than you have in

years past. And I think as a church, this is

a really great moment for us to to grow and how the Psalms are

connected to the New Testament and how they're connected to the

Old Testament. So this morning, particularly, I

want to kind of navigate through Scripture starting in the

Psalms. And I want to show you how this

Psalm is connected to this story in Exodus.

And, and this Psalm is connected to a Psalm in Lamentations and

then eventually even in the New Testament, how they're all just

a beautiful tapestry of connectedness throughout

Scripture and hopefully it will grow within you even more.

Again, admiration for God's word.

And I must say, at 55 years old, soon to be 56, I still go to

God's words, seeing new depth and new things spoken to me.

And in lifelong, we get to dig in and see again the tapestry

and how things are connected. And, and so this morning I have

great delight in getting to bring you this truth.

And I want you to know that I, that I, I get excited as I'm,

we're working each week to put the Psalms in a way where

hopefully you're growing again in your appreciation for them

and how they flow throughout scriptures.

So we started the first week. If you missed it, we go back

into wherever you podcast or you can find YouTube or Facebook.

Lots of ways to get the messages now and you'll see the first

week. I just introduced the idea that

the Psalms are a playlist. They're the OG, they're the

original playlist put together by God, by the Holy Spirit.

And these are songs that are written over a 1500 year period

of time. Moses has songs in the Psalms.

They are songs. And of course, David, hundreds

of years later, and then even hundreds of years after David is

king, you'll find that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the

days of Nehemiah and Esther, that era of followers of God

around 550 years before Jesus, there are songs even from that

period, right? And so maybe in your playlist

that you make, maybe you have some songs from the 50s and

maybe the songs that are recent, you put them all in one

playlist. And it's your expression what

God does this. And now we have this playlist in

the Psalms that we can go and glean from.

So I introduce you just to the idea of what the Psalms are.

And then the second week I talked to you about the

essential Psalms, the songs that are the most popular.

Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. I went through the ones that are

renowned and more familiar. And then we looked one week at

the Psalms to talk about who God is.

If you want to grow in your understanding of the attributes

of God and the character of God, the Psalms are full of

discussing this is what God is like, right?

And then we looked at psalms of repentance, particularly Psalm

51 where David is. He is addressed by Nathan the

prophet about his sin with Bathsheba.

And David comes to the point where he's saying things to the

Lord like God created me a clean heart and renew a right spirit

within me. There are times in our life

where, yes, prayers of repentance that are found in the

Psalms are helpful in our own repentance, the discipline of

repentance and growing in the ways of God.

Then finally, last week we looked at suffering and sorrow,

but particularly in the context of of like faith in God and

being tormented or suffering because of our faith in God,

because of our faithfulness to God.

So Peter writes to modern, well, at least in that era, he writes

to these Christians in what is now modern day Turkey, and

they're being tormented, persecuted because of their

faith in Jesus. And Peter quotes Psalms from the

Old Testament to encourage them. OK, so we looked at those types

of suffering moments when it's because we're standing up for

righteousness. The world according to the first

Peter, remember, he said they're going to call you the evil

doers. They're going to call you the

haters. And certainly in this era with

Christians, often when we stand up for our faith, we are going

to be called haters and evil doers for standing up for

righteousness. Now this week, the Psalms that

we're going to look at this week, they're different.

They're not just sorrow, but their their grief and their

grief because of great loss. David had sorrow for his sin.

That was one of Psalm 51. And then again, sorrow for being

persecuted. But what about the times where

we go through something that is devastating and we reach the

type of grief where it's physically painful?

You could be so sad and, and, and I have been, there have been

moments and times in my life where I even in my adult life

where I was so sad and so broken and so in despair and grief that

it physically hurt. And I would cry and cry and

moan. Maybe you've been in a place

like that, the Psalms that like the one that we just read, they

give voice to those moments, those emotions.

And I'm going to show you that it's really important as we

follow God to give voice to these emotions.

And maybe you have grown up in a Christian tradition where you

weren't aware that God welcomes those expressions and those

emotions and the honesty that we find in some of the Psalms.

Maybe you came from a Christian tradition where you thought you

always had to put on happiness and joy, not understanding that

joy is an ongoing state of mind. But we can have joy.

We can coexist in the midst of sorrow and sadness.

The type of joy that we received from God, It's ongoing.

It's not just a shallow emotion, but it can coexist with grief

and sorrow, the type of joy that we find in God.

So there are, if you know anything about music, you'll

know that a minor chord has a certain sound to it, right?

You flatten the third and it minor chords their their

dissidents. And when you hear a minor chord

in music, it gives voice to angst and sorrow.

These Psalms, some of the ones that we're going to look at

today and the other psalms of grief in the Psalms, they are

minor, often in their tone, their dissidents when they

express the sorrow that they are going through.

So let me unpack Psalm 13 for you and just kind of show you

the flow that is common with the psalms of grief.

There's a typical flow, and most of them have this flow to them.

Watch what the flow looks like. First of all, the psalmist has

questions for God, and maybe you didn't know that it's OK to

question God. God welcomes it and He gives it

to us as a model. In this occasion when David is

saying God, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

Now it's important to understand, has God forgotten

David? No.

But does David feel forgotten? Yes.

Does he feel alone? Yes.

And he's voicing his feelings, his emotions to God.

God's going to honor his faith if it's going to come after

these verses, but he starts here and you'll find that it's OK to

question God to God. God welcomes it.

It's a model again. So how long?

Oh God, He starts with that and he references the face of God.

He says, how long will you hide your face from me?

We know throughout Scripture that the face of God represents

the attention of God. And This is why at the end of

our services, when I say, may the Lord bless you and keep you,

and may He turn his face towards you.

In other words, it's a prayer to say over you.

May you sense God's attention and presence in your life.

The face of God represents attention.

A lot of times we're their children.

We want them to turn their face to us.

Our children want to turn our face to them.

It's representing our attention. David feels like he's lost the

attention of God. He hasn't.

I'll look in the next few weeks into Psalms that have

questionable doctrine or theology, and you might read and

go, wow, is that like New Testament?

Does it match up with our New Testament faith?

I've got some examples for you, but this is a moment where

again, David has not been abandoned.

God has not left him alone, but he feels it and I'm expressing

it to God. God honors in verse 2, He says,

how long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my

heart all day? If you've had sorrow in your

life before, you might even question God.

God, how long is this sorrow going to last?

How long is this grief and despair?

How long am I going to be in it? That's this question for God.

He's expressing it now. Watch what happens.

And this is common. You can just Google songs of

grief and the Psalms and you can find many, OK?

Some scholars think as many as a third of the Psalms are sad, at

least, at least sad. And so if not grief, OK, some of

them are expressing sorrow over sin, against sorrow over being

persecuted. Some are songs of grief.

And this is the typical flow for them.

So he's expressing his sorrow to God.

But then watch what he does. He switches his flow and he says

now he's bringing petitions to God.

And he says, consider and answer me, Oh Lord my God, light up my

eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say I have

prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Here he brings petition after being honest with God about

feeling left and alone. He's honest and God is going to

honor his prayer. But then watch what happens.

And again, this is the typical flow.

He doesn't stay in his place of sorrow.

The song is going to live at the end with a confession of faith.

He says, verse 5, but I have trusted in your steadfast love,

and my heart shall shall his future tense.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

In other words, God, I, I, I know that you're bringing

salvation. It's a confession that God is

going to deliver and save him from his sorrow.

And then he says, I will future tense sing to the Lord because

he is dealt bountifully with me. Watch how it switches in tone

and only 6 verses at first he's like, God, you've abandoned me,

I'm alone, where are you God, I don't sense you at all.

Then by verse 6 he's like you have steadfast love and God, you

have dealt bountifully with me. In other words, God, you've been

good to me. So he lifts himself out of this

place of sorrow in these verses. And again, this is the typical

flow in the Psalms when the psalmist confess their sorrow

and their grief, they get to a place of confession of faith and

watch this. We are encouraged to interact

with God this way. Maybe you didn't know that you

can go to God and say, God, I feel far from you.

I feel empty God. I don't know if you're even

seeing me many occasions in the Psalms.

This is the way the psalmist interact with God and we are

encouraged to do the same. So the question is, when was the

last time you were honest with God, right.

You might think you have to put on like a like just a show of

faith and everything's great, everything's great.

But but again, this is giving us the model.

You can go to God and say, God, I have doubt, I have sorrow.

I feel distant from you. Where are you God?

And from that place, the honesty before God, God will lift us out

of our sorrow when we come to him.

And that way. Now, in a way, this song is a

lament. And in a lament, at least in our

context, a lament in simplicity is just a sad song.

But for us, I want to look at it as a song from people who love

God but are navigating through the grief that life brings.

So the Psalm here is a lament. And maybe you know that there is

actually a book in the Old Testament after Jeremiah,

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. There's an entire book that is a

lament, and we believe it's written by Jeremiah.

And Jeremiah is just going on and on and on about his sorrow

over the city of Jerusalem that has been destroyed.

The people are starving. Terrible, terrible, terrible

things are happening. And in the midst of these great

tragedies, the grief and sorrow, he gets voice to it.

And it's in the Bible for us to read, right?

But watch what happens in the middle of Lamentations.

He's going on and on and on. He's writing Lamentations, you

know, roughly 550 years or so before Jesus is going to be born

in Bethlehem. And he says in Lamentations 317

through 22, watch he takes a turn, and his turn is going to

lift him out of his sorrow. He's admits my soul is bereft of

peace. I have forgotten what happiness

is. So I say my endurance has

perished, so has my hope from the Lord.

He's saying hope is dead, it's perished.

I love it. Tim Keller, who has since passed

away the last couple years, but a wonderful pastor, teacher,

writer, he said this of lamenting.

He said we need to learn the language of lament.

Until we learn how to lament, we will never truly learn how to

praise because your praise might end up just being fake.

If all you do is come to God and pretend or fake joy and

happiness when it's eluded you and you're actually full of

sorrow, then your praise will not be as meaningful when we're

not honest before God, when we're full of sorrow and talking

to God in the midst of our sorrow again is honorable.

So Jeremiah goes on in verse 19, he says, remember my affliction

watch. He's following the pattern that

we saw in Psalms. He admits that he's bereft of

peace, that he is like hope is dead.

But then he moves on to petitioning God.

It's the same flow that we found in Psalms.

Remember my affliction of my wondering is the Wormwood and

the gall. My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and

therefore I have hope. He says my hope is dead, but oh,

I want to renew my hope. So what does he do?

He says I call to mine. The steadfast love of the Lord

never ceases. His mercy has never come to an

end. They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness in the midst of his sorrow.

He admits his sorrow. Then he makes his confession.

Now the New Testament, I've showed you each week that the

New Testament quotes the Psalms often, right?

And now here's an occasion where the Old Testament, Jeremiah is

quoting the Psalms even in the Old Testament.

I want you to see they're all connected.

The New Testament is quoting in the Psalms.

Jeremiah is quoting the Psalms in Lamentations because watch in

Psalm 13 five, the passage there says, but I've trusted in your

steadfast love, and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

Jeremiah is quoting about the steadfast love of the Lord from

Psalm 13 five. He's modeling what God had set

up for him. Limitations 324 Then it goes on.

He says the Lord listen, he's lifting himself out of his

sorrow. The Lord is my portion says my

soul. Therefore I will hope in him.

Here he's quoting from Psalm 16, five that says the Lord is my

chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot when it says the

Lord is my portion. In other words, like the Lord is

all that I need. He, he gives me the food I need.

He gives me the whatever, whatever I need, God is bringing

to me, He is my portion, right. So Lamentations, Jeremiah is

quoting from the Psalms limitation 325 through 26 says

the Lord is good to those who wait for him, the soul who seeks

him. It is good that one should wait

quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Now, I want you to see that when the Psalms are being honest in

this way, I want you to understand that they're not just

going to the Lord and grumbling or complaining, because that's

not what God is encouraging. He's encouraging honesty.

But how does that look different than complaining?

And it's just murmuring, right? Well, I'm going to show you.

So here's a story because we're instructed in Philippians

chapter 214. Do all things without grumbling

or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children

of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted

generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.

So if we're encouraged not to grumble or complain, then what's

the difference between grumbling before God or being honest

before God? Well, I want to try to unpack it

for you. CS Lewis says this.

He says we must lay before him what is in US and not what ought

to be in US. This is valuable to know, OK?

When you go to God, you're like, God, this is me right now.

This is what's in me. It's not what should be in me

necessarily, but God. This is where I am.

And the Psalms of grief model this type of honesty with God.

But what makes what differentiates honesty with God

from grumbling and complaining? I want to show you.

God is going to deal with the children of Israel in Exodus

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17, one through 7. Now, if you remember the

children of Israel and Exodus, Exodus is early in the Bible,

after Genesis. If you're new to the Bible,

you'll remember Moses and the Prince of Egypt and those other

stories, the 10 commandments. So Moses goes to the Pharaoh in

Egypt where there are Jewish Israel, Israelites, slaves, OK,

they've been enslaved for hundreds of years.

And God tells Moses to go tell the Pharaoh, let my people go.

And the Pharaoh says, no, remember, like Pharaoh, Pharaoh,

oh, let my people go, right? So that's a story.

And so Pharaoh says no. But then there are these plagues

after, you know, plague after plague.

And eventually the Pharaoh has experienced enough tragedy

because of God to find and say, OK, you may leave, right?

So they leave out of Egypt from slavery and they cross over the

Red Sea and got this miracle after miracle after miracle,

right? He shows up in their life.

But what do they do? They're like they're complainers

and they just murmur and watch what they do.

This is a story in Exodus 17, one through 7.

It says all the congregation of the people of Israel moved on

from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the

commandment of the Lord, and they camped at refitum, but

there was no water for the people to drink.

Therefore the people quarrelled with Moses and said, Give us

water to drink. And Moses said to them, Why do

you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?

Now you might think that their problem was thirst because they

didn't have water, but really their problem was trust.

They did not learn to trust in God.

So instead of them going to God and petitioning God to move in

their lives and to bring them water, instead they go and they

murmur and complain amongst each other.

And then they murmur and complain to Moses who was their

leader. But they don't go to God.

They're just complaining. Watch verse 3.

But the people thirsted there for water, and the people

grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of

Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with

thirst? Now consider this.

They don't pray to God in honesty.

They grumble against Moses. And this is a big principle.

How often do we grumble and complain instead of praying to

God? And like lamentations, do we

speak of the steadfast love of the Lord even in the midst of

struggle? No, they're not doing this.

So the model here is watch, you could go to God and say, God,

I'm tired, my hope is dead. We're not encouraged to go to

each other. Now, yes, there's a level of

honesty, yes, with other believers.

But when it gets to the point where they're grumbling and just

complaining, God has abandoned us.

We need water. Things are terrible.

Oh, what was me? What was me?

What was me? They're not going to God with

their sorrow. Instead, they're just

complaining and living in it. So verse 4.

So Moses cried to the Lord. Moses cries to the Lord.

They're not crying out to the Lord, they're murmuring to each

other and complaining to him. But Moses goes to the Lord and

he says, what shall I do with this people?

They are almost ready to stone me.

And the Lord said to Moses, pass on before the people, taking

with you some of the elders of Israel, and taking your hand to

staff with which you struck the Nile.

The Nile was a river that had turned to blood.

And go, and behold, I will stand before you there on the rocket

horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out

of it, and the people will drink.

And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

And he called on the name of the he called the name of the place

Massa or Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of

Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying, is the Lord

among us or not? Now they're asking kind of the

same question. David's asking God, where are

you? There's like, is the Lord with

us or not? But watch, see the difference

here? They're not asking God, They're

asking each other in a complaining, quarreling way.

It's better to go to God and say, God, where are you?

I don't sense you, God, where are you?

And then to follow the model of these psalms, where then they

make petition to God and they make a confession about the

goodness of God. The people who are not following

God well in the story, they're just complaining to each other.

They haven't gone to God, but Moses does.

And watching what's going to happen is God is going to do a

miracle. And when he does, it's going to

give a picture of Jesus. How does Jesus respond to these

complaining, murmuring people? Well, God is going to do a

miracle. He's gracious to them.

He's going to bring water out of a rock.

And the rock, of course, is a representation of Jesus.

Jesus is going to be called the rock in the New Testament, and

Jesus is going to be called living water.

So in the midst of their complaining, God is going to

respond beautifully to them. But they're not following the

model that we get in the songs of grief.

They're just complaining to each other.

And how many Christians do you know that just complain and

bellyache and complain and bellyache?

And sometimes it's like, have you gone to God about this or

you just go to your friends about it?

You just go and just just all things are terrible, terrible,

terrible. Where's the Lord in this?

Right? But they haven't gone to God

about it. That's the model that the songs

of grief give to us. God is gracious to provide water

for them, but it's not a fault. It's not a model for us to

follow. Watch we see how Jesus shows up

in this picture in this moment, John 410 through 14 Jesus just

verse 10. Jesus answered her being the

woman at the well in Samaria who was far from God and confused

and watch. He says if you knew the gift of

God and who it is that is saying to you give me a drink, you

would have asked him and he would have given you living

water. Jesus is a picture of living

water and watch it's coming from now.

I want you to see how this is connected.

Exodus has a story. They need water.

Moses delivers the water as he strikes the rock that is Jesus

living water comes out. That's Jesus.

OK now forward in history. The Psalms are going to connect

the idea of living water from Exodus Psalm 63 verse one.

Oh God, you are my God earnestly I seek you, my soul thirst for

you, my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land, for

there is no water. It's it's nodding back at the

story of Moses and the children of Israel hundreds of years

later. And then from there we're going

to see in the New Testament that Jesus is connected to this idea.

So they're murmuring and they're complaining, but they're not

going to God. That is the our discipline

should be going to God. When we have hope that it's

failing, when we're physically thirsty, we can remember that

our souls are made to thirst for the Lord.

This is the point of fasting. When we fast and we get hungry

and thirsty, it's a picture of us hungering and thirsting for

God. The songs of grief can remind us

of our ultimate need for God in this fallen world.

Now Jesus is going to utilize songs of grief in the New

Testament. The last couple weeks I've been

starting the New Testament going backwards, but this week I'm

going to end in the New Testament.

Jesus himself uses these psalms of grief when he's on the cross.

Psalm 22 verses one through 2. This is where Jesus is going to

quote. He says, this psalmist says, my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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

groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you

do not answer, and by night but I find no rest.

Can you believe this is in the Bible, right?

This is in the Bible. This is how honest God wants us

to be with Him in this place of sorrow.

Another occasion. Psalm 2219 it says, but watch

it's going to he's going to lift.

It's going to follow this pattern of you admit you're

honest before God. God, I'm full of sorrow.

I'm full of grief. But then by verse 19, they get

to the point where the Psalm is the same.

But you, O Lord, do not be far off.

It's a petition. O my help come quickly to my

aid. OK, next week I'm going to talk

about Psalms with some questionable theology again.

We'll look to those in their moments again where they're

looking like David. It's like, is God far from

David? No, but he feels that way and

God's OK with him admitting it. So in the New Testament, Jesus

is going to lean back to these passages.

In Matthew 27, Jesus is on the cross and he's experiencing

grief and agony and pain because He's paying for our sin.

We spelled celebrated communion this morning to remind ourselves

of the blood that was spilled and His body that was broken for

us. We're remembering what Jesus did

when Jesus was in the state. Verse 45 of Matthew 27 he quotes

these Psalms. Now from the 6th hour there was

darkness over all the land until the 9th hour and about the 9th

hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying Eli, Eli Lima

Sabakhthani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Jesus feels distant from God in this moment, from the Father.

If he feels it, then they're going to be moments where we

feel it. But these psalms give us a place

to confess the sorrow and then to petition God and to get to a

point where we stir ourselves back to faith.

That is the flow God invites us into utilizing these psalms in

this way. So my question for you is when

is the last time you got before God and you got honest about

your disappointment about where you feel far from Him, about

your confusion. Maybe there were moments you

were looking for God to move in a certain way and he didn't and

you don't understand why and you getting before God and simply

saying God, I'm confused. I don't understand.

I remember there was a season in my life where I was praying for

something that was really had caused a lot of grief in my

life. And I got to a point where I

would pray, I would say, God, this would be nothing for you

God, I'm asking you to move in this way and I know it would be

nothing. This would be so easy for you

God. Why, why, why?

And that honestly before God was beneficial in my journey to

growing closer to Him. Because when we deny our sorrow,

when we deny our grief, it actually distances us more from

God. Instead of drawing close, we are

honest, then we petition God, and then we lead ourselves to a

place where we make confessions about the steadfast love of the

Lord and the faithfulness of God.

I love the hymn. It is well with my soul.

Maybe you're familiar with this old hymn, right?

The story goes that the songwriter, his name is Horatio

Spafford. And in 1873, his wife and his

four daughters were crossing the Atlantic on their way to Europe.

And the ship that they were on went down.

And the mother reaches the other shore and she texts back.

I mean, she telegraphs back, right?

She telegraphs back. She she sends a message that all

four of the daughters had had passed away in this wreck.

And then he is going to Horatio was going to travel that same

route in the days to come. And the story is that the

captain of the ship comes from and says this is where the ship

went down. This is where your daughter's

went down. And it's in that place that he

pens the words. When peace like a river.

I have to sing it in order to say, When peace like a river.

Can you sing this with me? Restoreth my soul.

When sorrows like sea billows roll, He's emitting his sorrow.

Whatever my Lord thou has taught me to say, it is well.

It is well in my soul. He's doing the same flow of the

psalms of grief. He's admitting his sorrow, he's

petitioning God and he's confessing.

It is well with my soul. The discipline of this is so

important in the life of a believer.

And maybe you've never, maybe this is such a strange idea for

you. Maybe you didn't know that there

were these psalms of grief and you didn't know that they were a

model for us to follow. And maybe you've been trying to

follow God with putting on, you know, whatever level of

happiness you had in the midst of great tragedy.

God's not calling or expecting that of you.

Instead, he's inviting you to honest, honest admission of

where you are. You can question him.

You can yell at God. Did you know that?

You can? And God welcomes that honesty.

And then you get to the place again.

The flow is you are honest. You petition, and then you

confess your faith. It leads to that.

So let me give you application. Many of you are reading or

listening to the songs more than you ever have before.

And maybe when you come across these songs of grief, maybe just

skip over them and you're like, that's not where I am now.

And that's OK. But maybe you want to mark them

and go, if I ever do find myself in a place of grief, I want to

go back to those. Or you can just Google songs of

grief. You'll find them.

There are many of them, and knowing the value of them and

that they're there is important in the life of a Christian, a

follower of God. So my question is, do you skip

over them or maybe mark them to recall they're there when you

might need one? And then my hope is that as you

grow in your knowledge of what the Psalms are like, that it

will increase within you a great love for the Psalms, that

admiration and awe of the of the tapestry of Scripture, how it's

all connected. My hope, my hope, I do hope when

I teach and when you hear teaching, wherever you're

getting your teaching from, that's solid and, and, and godly

that you're growing in your love for Scripture.

As you grow in your love and admiration for Scripture, you

will grow closer to God. And knowing that there are

moments like these where people are honest with God in shocking

ways, hopefully will increase within you your love and awe of

God speaking to us in the word. Let me pray for us, God.

I'm grateful to again discover how you respond to just honesty.

And you lead us out of our sorrow and tears and mourning

when we're honest with you about it.

And so grow us in our discipline of this.

Some of us have never had a moment of honesty with you.

We've been afraid to do so and now we see that it's so

prevalent in the Psalms. Jesus, you were honest when you

felt alone. Jeremiah in Lamentations is

honest when he felt alone. But they lifted themselves out

of it. Help us to learn how to do this

well as we model and follow after these Psalms.

We pray this in Jesus name. And everyone said, hey, man,

hey, before we finish, I do want to give just a brief moment.

If you're here this morning and you've been wrestling with the

claims of Christianity, but you've never given your life to

Jesus, you've never surrendered your life, maybe you've been

wondering for a while, then I want to give you a moment to do

that today. And what does that look like?

It looks like you're getting to a place where you believe in

your heart that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God, and then you

confess it with your mouth. You say, OK, I'm going to say it

out loud, I'm going to speak it to others that Jesus is God.

And Jesus put on human skin and came and sacrificed himself for

us at the cross. That's Communion this morning.

And through the cross and the burial in the resurrection of

Jesus, we can receive forgiveness, we can be cleansed

from our sin, and we can be set up to spend eternity with God

forever. And we received the eternity of

God now and this life, we don't have to wait until we die to

experience it. No, you can experience the

presence, the power of God now in your life when you submit

your life to Jesus. So I'm going to pray in my

encouragement to you is if you've never done that, you've

never become a Christian, then you can echo this prayer with

me. And then I will encourage you to

tell somebody, tell me, tell a friend that's mature in the Lord

that you made a decision to follow after Jesus and you

surrendered your life to him. That's the point at which you

become a Christian. And then from there, we

encourage you to be baptized and grow, chase after the ways of

God and see what God will do in your life.

Let me pray. You might want to say this echo

this prayer. If you want to become a

Christian, you could say Heavenly Father, I come to you

in the name of Jesus and I believe in my heart that Jesus,

you are God and Jesus, I confess it with my mouth.

I say that you are Lord of all the creator of all things, and I

turn towards you. I turn away from my sin, I turn

to you and I say I want to surrender my life to you.

I want to repent of my own ways. So as I surrender my life to

you, Jesus, Holy Spirit, come and dwell within me.

Put eternity into me. I pray God and grow me in your

ways. I believe I'm saved and cleansed

and born again as I surrender my life to you.

In Jesus name I pray and everyone said Amen.

Let's all stand together. Thank you so much for being here

today. I hope that you enjoy the last

little bit of fall that is still here.

Whatever a little bit you can find out there, enjoy it.

And before you go, I want to say a blessing over you if you'll

prepare your heart to receive this blessing.

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may he make

his face to shine upon you. And may the joy of the Lord that

is unspeakable and full of glory, may it abound to you.

And may the peace of God that passes all understanding, may it

surprise you in the midst of all of the challenges that life

brings. And then may the mercies of the

Lord, in other words, the forgiveness of God, that's new

every morning. May it be especially new to you

now in your mornings to come. And now may the Lord Jesus

Christ guard your heart and your mind.

You are salt in your light. Go now and be salt and light

unto the world. You are blessed.

I'll see you again soon.