Psalm 13
Lord’s Day, September 27, 2020
First Christian Church, Owensville, IN
Bart W. Newton, Preaching Minister
(Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.)
To hear an audio recording of this sermon, click on the following line: ”Learning to Lament”
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
13: 1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 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?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me. (ESV)
Prayer
• Psalms are an expression of the human experience. They describe real life blessings and trials.
Psalms flow out of three basic conditions/states in life:
• Psalms of Orientation: Seasons of wellbeing that bring to mind gratitude. (Examples: Psalms 8, 33, 104, 119, 131, 133)
• Psalms of Disorientation: Seasons of anguish, alienation, suffering, and death. (13, 85, 86, 74, 79, 137)
• Psalms of New Orientation: Seasons of surprise when life takes a fresh turn as we are overwhelmed with God’s new gifts as joy breaks through the despair. (Examples: 65, 66, 124, 129, 29, 47,100, 146-150)
• Today we’re focusing on Psalm of Disorientation.
Three forms of disorientation & anxiety:
• Anxiety that comes from going through various stages of life. (1st day of school; graduation; college/trade school; dating; marriage; retirement; senior years; nursing home)
• Anxiety that comes from trials or tragedy that unexpectedly come into life. (sudden death of loved one; laid off from work; betrayal; infidelity; burglary; house fire; COVID-19)
• Anxiety that comes as the world around us begins to change. (Rapid rate of change often a factor; technological, political, social, etc.)
• • It’s OK to lament (crying out in grief) in our prayers.
• We often resist the new circumstances and cling to the old circumstances. We should help one another through such times.
Psalms that deal with the human experiences of disorientation and anxiety are called lament (complaint) prayer songs.
• “It is clear that a church that goes on singing ‘happy songs’ in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does.’” –Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms
Laments or complaint psalms:
• Is the most frequently used form in the Psalter. (1/3)
• Can be both individual and congregational.
• Most common feature: psalmist is in trouble & calls God for help.
Basic Element of a Lament Psalm: The expression of suffering and the expression of faith that God will come to the rescue.
• “a confident yearning for God’s positive intervention” –Walter Brueggemann
• One of the benefits: Lament “forces us to deal with suffering by directing our despair not away from God, but toward him.” –Walter Kaiser
• Psalm 13 is a song of lament (complaint).
• There are three stanzas of two verses each (1-2, 3-4, 5-6)
• In each stanza David’s concern is for God, for himself, and for his circumstance
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
• Pain Expressed (vv. 1-2)
13:1 How long, O Lord? (God is addressed.)
• Description of the trouble:
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 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?
• Who is David’s enemy exalted over or dominating him?
• The psalm doesn’t say. Possibilities include King Saul.
• From the time King Saul became jealous of David he was an enemy of David.
• 1 Samuel 18:28-29: 28 When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and how much his daughter Michal loved him, 29 Saul became even more afraid of him, and he remained David’s enemy for the rest of his life. (NLT)
• Enemy could be David’s son, Absalom.
• Or maybe the enemy is death itself or an illness leading to death (v. 3):
• V.2a, NRSV: How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
• Whomever or whatever David’s enemy it is, it has become a worrisome burden to him: v. 2a, CSB: How long will I store up anxious concerns within me,
agony in my mind every day?
• Prayer Confessed (vv. 3-4)
• David gives his reasons to God for why he should be heard. It is a flat-out straight petition to God:
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
• “God, do something before this experience does me in!”
• Praise Professed (vv. 5-6)
• Statement of trust: 5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
• Promise of praise: 6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me. (ESV)
• V. 6, GW: I will sing to the Lord because he has been good to me.
Typical Outline of a Lament (Complaint) Psalm Using Psalm 13 as an Example
1st Person Direct Address (v. 1)
Description of the Trouble (vv. 1-2)
Petition to Hear or Help (v. 3)
Reasons to Be Heard (vv. 3-4)
Statement of Trust (v. 5)
Promise of Praise (v. 6)
Consider using the above outline to write your own prayer/psalm of lament.
• When I was learning about songs of lament, the class was given the assignment of going off by ourselves and writing our own prayers of lament using this outline.
• When we came back together, volunteers were asked to read their lament psalms to the group. There were two or three instances in which when the laments were read there wasn’t a dry eye in the room!
How long, O Lord? “How long” has been described as “the song of the ages.”
• “So we find acknowledged here in Scripture what we all know in experience, that the steady march of real time never corresponds to the rate at which perceived time moves, dawdling or cantering, disappearing in a flash or seeming to stand still. It is not only ‘with the Lord’ that ‘a day’ can be ‘like a thousand years’!”—Michael Wilcock, The Message of Psalms (Psalms 1-72): Songs for the People of God, p. 51
Echos of “How long, O Lord” are heard in the New Testament. Remember King Jesus’s revelation to the apostle John on the Island of Patmos on the Lord’s Day:
• Revelation 6:9-11: 9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (ESV)
• This is a reminder that there is no time during this age which will ever be free from evil (Wilcock, p. 51).
• Do you have any “How long?” laments? How long, O Lord….
• …before the pain of my loved one’s passing goes away?
• …until my wayward child turns to your Son Jesus?
• …before I’m delivered from this battle with depression?
• …until I get over the hurt of being betrayed?
• …until I get good employment?
• ....before I learn to be a good steward of the physical body you gave me?
• ….will my classmates keep making fun of me?
• ….before we start really multiplying disciples through this church?
• ….until many families of the church turn from the idols that draw them away from Lord’s Day worship?
• ….before the majority of the church members practice the principle of tithing because they are grateful to You?
• …before older women teach the younger women to dress modestly?
• …before the older men teach the younger men to ensure their families participate in the Lord’s Day assembly?
Remember: God is and will be good to you:
• Ephesians 3:20: Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (NLT)
• Philippians 1:6: And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (ESV)
• Romans 8:28-29: 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (NLT)