Questions Welcome: Introducing Season 3 with Psalm 13

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel Podcast. My name is Jason and I am

the pastor of Faith Chapel.

We are beginning our third season of the podcast with this episode.

In season three, we will be using a sermon series from 2021 entitled Questions.

The congregation of Faith Chapel was asked to submit any questions they had

about Christianity or the Bible

and the answer to those questions were given in the form of a sermon.

Each sermon in this series will handle a different question.

This episode deals with the opening of the sermon series and introducing the

biblical idea of asking questions by looking at how David questions God in Psalm 13.

Thanks for joining us today.

Elie Wiesel was a survivor of the Holocaust.

He was in Auschwitz, and he was in a second concentration camp named Buchenwald.

And in these, he experienced horrors that we can only imagine,

that we can only imagine in our brains.

The moment he got off of the train at Auschwitz, he was separated from his family.

And what he learned later was that he saw his mom and his younger sister go

be taken to a gas chamber.

Right away, within 10 minutes of arriving, he had already lost members of his family.

He was somebody who endured hardship, physical trauma, starvation.

He's somebody who dealt with emotional hurt and anguish at what he saw people doing to other people.

He really, really was somebody who experienced the horrors and the worst things

that human beings can do to each other.

And through it all, he relied upon his upbringing as he was a devout Jew.

And he would stay in his concentration camp and he would pray and he would see

his fellow Jewish people praying to God to end the horrors that they were experiencing.

But the answers didn't come. And this caused Elie Wiesel to really question God.

And this is what he said. I questioned God's silence.

I don't have answers for that. Does it mean I stopped having faith? No.

I have faith, but I do question it. And so what Elie Wiesel really promotes

in us is this ability to question God.

And his experiences were so traumatic that he is like, if God is real and if

God is good, why is this happening?

Why am I and millions of other people being put through this horror?

Elie Wiesel survived the concentration camps. And he became a teacher.

And these questions kept prompting him that he asked about God.

But he also sees the value in questions in a different way.

And he says, as a teacher, I always love questions.

Because what it means from people who are learning, from people who are being

taught, is that they are paying attention and that they are curious about the

subject matter that's being shared.

And so it's natural for us as human beings to be curious. It's natural for us

as human beings to really question things.

And you can think about kids and the question of why and the never-ending supply of that why question.

Well, why do we have to do this? Well, why is that so?

It's just part of our nature. And it's a part of our nature that I really want

to promote over the next however long it ends up being.

If you got a bulletin today, you got a post-it note.

And on this post-it note, I encourage you to write down questions that you have

that you are pondering about the things of God.

Maybe it's about God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit.

Maybe it's about creation. Maybe it's about the end of time.

Maybe it's about how the Bible was put together. Maybe it's about,

is Jesus a historical person?

But I put this on every bulletin. Actually, my kids did, so thank you.

Put this on every bulletin so that you could ask questions.

It's really, really important as people who are going to be lifelong learners

about God to ask our questions.

And over the next several weeks, we're going to go over each and every one of

the questions that is submitted.

And we're going to dive deeper into our understanding, dive deeper into our

faith by asking questions.

Now, once you have your question written, there is a poster board hanging in the fellowship hall.

And I encourage you before you leave today to write down your question or questions

and stick it to that poster board.

I'm really serious about this. I really want to encourage you to ask questions.

And during the sermons over the next few weeks, we're going to really be looking

at what the question is, what the answer is.

Now, the question may not always have an answer that we can answer as finite human beings,

but we're gonna give it our best shot and we're gonna leave the rest over to

God because there are things in our lives that we're not going to be 100% sure of.

We need to be like Elie Wiesel who took his questions, who looked for answers

for them, and who found them,

and who continued to have faith in God even after he experienced those horrible,

horrible years in the concentration camps.

It's healthy, and it's a good thing to do, and I really invite you to submit your questions.

Today in our scripture passage, we're going to be talking, we're going to be

looking at how one of the biggest characters in the Bible, continued to ask questions of God.

That person is David, who is the second king of Israel, and he is described

in the Bible as someone who is after God's very own heart.

The psalm we're going to look at today is Psalm 13, but before I read through it, I'm going to pray.

Lord God Almighty, we come before you today and we ask you to speak to us.

We ask you to give us understanding. We ask you to give us a better sense and purpose in our lives.

Really drive questions down to us. Help us when we encounter something,

whether it's through our scripture reading, whether it's a question of somebody

we're trying to disciple and bring into the faith.

Pray that you will give us wisdom and discernment to really grow in our faith of you.

Jesus, we ask this in your name. Amen.

Psalm 13, it does have an introductory phrase and the introductory phrase says

this, for the choir director, a Psalm of David.

So we know it's written by David who was the second king in Israel.

And we know that it was written to be sung in a worship setting.

And so this isn't just meant for David and what he was going through,

although that's the backdrop of the story.

This is meant for other people to really ask these questions that David pinned here.

So again, this is license for us to ask questions.

Always question things. Always question. And so that's how David starts out.

Verse 1 says this, O Yahweh. And that's a really important start to this psalm

because Yahweh is the personal name of God.

And whenever you see, Lord, in all capital letters in your Bible.

This is the personal name of God that God gave to Moses at the burning bush.

It is a name that quite frankly, we don't know all of the letters of it because

they took out all of the vowels and they only wrote the consonants to his name.

And so it's a name that they revered. It's a name that they honored really, really strictly.

But David uses it here as the personal name of God.

And this tells us that David has a tight relationship with God.

He is really close to him and he is really pursuing God as somebody to follow.

And so he starts out, Oh Yahweh, how long will you forget me forever?

How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish

in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day?

How long will my enemy have the upper hand?

Asked some very poignant questions, but that we really need to dive into.

The first question is a question that we need to understand comes from the emotions

of David and what he was feeling at this time.

Because theologically speaking, it is completely inaccurate.

The question is, how long will you forget me?

Well, a completely omniscient God who we serve, a completely all-knowing God,

cannot forget anything.

And so this isn't a theological treatise here. This is raw emotions and feelings.

David feels separated from God so far that he cannot even comprehend that God is near him.

The valley that he is in is so deep, he can't even see the sun.

It is completely, completely in despair that he writes this.

And this gives us the ability and the license to say, God, where are you in this mess?

Have you forgotten me? Have you left me behind?

Are you really there?

This is what David is saying.

Where are you? And just by crying out, just by saying, yeah,

I have this tight relationship with you and you are my God.

You are, you have a personal relationship with me.

He is saying, I want that closeness.

I want that connection with you again.

This continues with how long will you look the other way? And again,

an all-knowing God doesn't miss a single thing.

He knows the depths of our despair. He knows exactly where we are at.

He knows how many hairs are upon our head.

He is completely, completely all-knowing.

But again, sometimes it feels like God is way away from us. It feels like he

has just abandoned us completely and we are left to our own devices.

And David is showing us that it's okay to call out to God in this way.

It's okay to question him in your feelings.

And then the next question is, how long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,

with sorrow in my heart every day?

And what he's really trying to say here is, God, I'm really trying to process

through this, but I'm ignoring the proverb that says, lean not on your own understanding.

And in my heart and in my soul and in my emotions, like I am letting them run

wild and they are taking me to places that I don't want to go.

How long am I going to be in this pit of despair, just being recycled and spat

out, recycled and spat out time and time again.

Our culture really has an issue with promoting feelings above facts.

Advertising slogans all over the place really promote, do what feels best to you.

This is why in Las Vegas, it says what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

If you want to come here and you want to drink yourself stupid,

hey, no one's going to know back home, you're okay. If you want to come here

and lose your money, hey, when you go back, somehow, someway,

you're going to have money again.

What happens here stays here.

There's a slogan by Pepsi a while ago that said, live for the now.

Live for your feelings. Live for your emotions. And I'm telling you,

our feelings and our emotions can be completely wrong.

They are valid opinions, all right? You have them.

They are real feelings, but it doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

And David is saying, how long are you going to let me suffer in this cycle where

I am not experiencing you,

where my feelings and my emotions are making my mind run wild,

and I'm thinking things that I don't want to think.

And then finally he says, how long will my enemy have the upper hand?

Now we're not told in the Psalm what the adversary really is.

Is it spiritual warfare?

Is it a health issue or a crisis?

As David, like he had a lot of physical enemies as well. People who wanted him dead.

The first king of Israel wanted David dead.

There were enemies and adversaries throughout his life who wanted David dead.

Even his own son rebelled against David. And so it could have been another person.

It could have been some physical issue he was going through.

It could have been a spiritual battle that he was fighting.

We're not told what it was, but David is asking God, how long will my enemy, have the upper hand.

This is a very, very raw state that David finds himself in.

And he is not holding back any punches. He's saying, God, this is my reality

right now. These are my feelings. I know they're not real.

All right. I know you are omniscient. I know you are all knowing.

I know you are everywhere present all at the same time, but I don't feel it.

And I need you to correct me.

I need you to pull me back. How long until you do that? How long until you pull

me out of the pit of despair?

These are questions that are good and right to ask when we're going through difficult seasons.

These are questions that are perfectly legit to take to God.

Questions are good. And I really want to promote that.

But that's not where David ends here. Verse 3, he says this,

Turn and answer me, O Yahweh, my God.

Restore the sparkle to my eyes or I will die. Don't let my enemies gloat,

saying, We have defeated him.

Don't let them rejoice at my downfall. And so we see here, David is saying,

I feel like I am losing my life.

Wife has this saying, she can look into our kids' eyes and she says, you have tired eyes.

Our eyes do help us to see into the rest of our body.

They are a window to us. And David's like, the sparkle from my eyes has gone.

I'm falling. I'm dying here. And I need to be restored.

Turn to me and answer me.

And then it's the adversary. If it's a physical adversary, it's obviously can be life-threatening.

If it's another human being who wants to take your life, it can obviously be life-taking.

It can also be dangerous to your body. If it's a spiritual warfare,

I mean, just think of what Job went through, where he had boils,

where he had emotional scars from losing his kids and all of his personal property.

There's a lot that can go on within these.

And so David is saying, I have an

adversary and I don't want my enemies to gloat. I want you to be exalted.

As the antithesis of the enemies gloating is that God gets exalted. God gets praised.

God comes to know. People come to know God because of God's activity in this world.

So he's asking God, turn to me, answer me, restore my vitality,

restore my life. And this is a petition.

This is a petition of God. It shifts here. And he's asking God,

all right, this is what I want.

This is what I need. Please come and bring it to me.

But that's not where he ends it. Sometimes where we end our prayers,

sometimes where we begin our prayers by just coming to God and saying to God, hey, I need you here.

That's not where David ends it. In verse five, he says, but I trust in your

unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me.

I will sing to Yahweh because he is good to me.

So he makes a resolution in his mind right here. And he says,

all right, this is not where I'm going to end.

God, I'm going to trust in your unfailing love. I'm going to trust.

I'm going to have faith and I'm going to experience everything in a way that draws me closer to you.

I'm really going to run after you. I'm going to trust in your unfailing love.

Then I'm going to rejoice. Now, remember, David is in a really terrible headspace.

It's being cycled in his brain. His thoughts are constantly being overwhelmed

by his emotions and feelings.

And again, they are inaccurate because God is omniscient. He is all-knowing

and he cannot forget about us.

David's in that terrible headspace where we get sometimes.

And he says, but I will trust in your unfailing love.

I'm going to shift my mind as much as I can. When I feel it racing and past

that, I don't want it to go.

I'm going to really focus in on who God is and trust in his unfailing love.

And then I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to celebrate because you have rescued me.

And rescue there is in the past tense.

And so it's David remembering all the other times that God has brought him out of the pits of despair.

I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to celebrate in you because what have you have already done for me?

And then lastly, he says, I will sing.

I will sing. Ivan Moiseyev in 1970 was 18 years old and a soldier in the USSR army.

One other thing he was, was a Christian.

He followed after Jesus and he wasn't shy about it. He wasn't shy.

Everybody knew. He had made several visits to his commanding officers who tried to

educate him on how Jesus wasn't the true God and how he was wasting his time

and how he shouldn't speak about Jesus to the people in his army barracks.

Multiple occasions they did this, trying to re-doctrinate him.

Finally, it got to the point where it needed to get physical in their eyes.

And so they made him stand, again, this is the USSR at that time,

they made him stand outside in the dead of winter in his summer uniform in the

dead of night for hours at a time. Hours at a time.

And they would come and visit him every hour and say, are you ready to disown

Jesus right now? And every time he said no.

Every time he said no. And in the book Jesus Freaks, which was written by DC

Talk in the voice of the martyrs, this is how they recount what happened.

For the next 12 nights, Ivan continued to stand in the street outside his barracks.

Miraculously, he did not freeze, nor did he beg for mercy.

Ivan continued to speak about his faith to his comrades and officers.

He sang about the glory of Jesus Christ in his barracks, though this was strictly prohibited.

To those who threatened him, he replied, a lark, which I had to look that up,

that is a small ground-dwelling songbird, a lark threatened with death for singing

would still continue to sing.

She cannot renounce her nature, neither can we Christians.

What he was saying is that if you have a bird chirping outside your window,

and you run to it, maybe you even have a shotgun with you, and you threaten

the bird, the bird is not going to stop singing because you go out there.

And he's saying, neither can us as Christians.

Now, I understand that some of us don't really particularly like singing,

and I get that, and I understand that.

The message here is that we need to be praising God.

As Christians, our mantra that we can never get out of us is that we will praise God.

That we will praise Him.

Ivan, in the threat of the USSR in the 1970s, said, I'm not going to stop.

This is who I am on the inside, and you're not going to get me to change.

This is my nature now. This is who I am.

David, in the very same way,

in that negative headspace where his thoughts are twirling and swirling down

destructive patterns of thought and behavior, said, no, no, no, no.

I'm going to choose to sing. I'm going to choose to sing.

Yesterday, I was in negative headspace. I had to go for a walk early in the

morning, and as I was walking, I was singing.

I didn't feel like it, and I knew I needed to change my attitude.

There was a song that came to my mind.

It's by Matt Marr and it's, Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you.

Every hour I need you. You're my one request. You're my righteousness.

Oh God, how I need you.

I understand that sometimes we don't want to praise God.

I understand that the cycles that we go through can really eliminate it.

But we have to remember David here saying, no matter what I'm going through,

I'm going to focus on praising God.

We have to remember Ivan here, who did eventually lose his life for not recanting

about his Christianity.

That, hey, this is my nature now, and I'm really going to go after Jesus.

I'm really going to follow him. I think the important thing,

though, is that David began with questions.

Not take our faith blindly. We should never take our faith blindly.

We should really ask questions and we should really be able to come together

in community and say, hey, I'm really struggling.

I've heard people talk about the creation story and now I'm all messed up in

the head. I don't know what to believe.

I don't know what to think. Or, hey, I'm really nervous about what's going to

happen at the end of days? Are we at the end of days?

And those sorts of things. And we need to be able to ask those questions.

We need to be able to say, God, how long are you going to wait until you interact in my life?

Whether it's a sickness, whether it's an adversary, a bully,

whether it's a spiritual warfare that you are fighting, we need to come and

we need to be able to ask questions because in the questions,

we get closer and closer to God.

We are participating and we are actively trying to seek to better understand

who the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are.

It is what we need to do. And as Ivan said, Christians just sing.

That's what we do. we also need to add.

Christians ask questions. It's what we do.

If we're going to impact this world, if we're going to impact ourself,

if this book is really going to become our mantra.

It's a long and confusing book sometimes written in poetic language,

a lot of the times written in,

prose, written in historical narratives that are steeped in the culture of the day that it was written.

And it is a book that needs to be asked questions about.

If we are really going to obey the great commandment, the great commission of

Jesus, if we're really going to go out into the world, make disciples of all the world,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching

them to obey all that he has commanded us, we got to be able to ask questions.

And so I really want to encourage you, ask questions.

I want to go over these questions over the next few weeks. And if it takes to

the end of the year, it takes to the end of the year, I'm perfectly content

with that. And it would make me happy to do that.

Write your questions and stick them on that poster board.

I think it's one of the greatest things we can do to grow our faith. Let's pray.

Lord, I praise you and I thank you for who you are. You are sovereign.

You are all powerful. You are everywhere present all at the same time.

And even if our feelings tell us otherwise, help us to continue to know that you are near.

Us to continue to know that you want us to learn, that you want us to grow about

you, and that asking questions about it is good and right.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name. Amen.

Thank you again for joining us for the beginning of the third season of the Faith Chapel podcast.

The hope of this season is to promote questions in and amongst followers of Jesus.

It is good to ask questions. Questions show you want to learn.

Be curious and always ask questions.

Join us in the next episode as we answer our first question,

are the genealogies in the Bible important?

Have a great week.