Psalm 77 • The God Who Leads

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

We love the Psalms. We love the Psalms because like all good poetry or songs,



 they speak deeply about what is deepest in us. Our thoughts, our concerns, our emotions, that's what Hebrew Psalms are. They are poetic Psalms for Hebrew worship, but they don't just touch us deeply. To our surprise, they also speak honestly about what is very deep in us. Profound joy, yes, but also deep pain.



 Strength and sorrow get equal playing time in the Psalms. And never is it more important to say that when we're at Psalm 77, which is the beginning of a profound deep slide into a black abyss of pain that ends in the pool of Psalm 88.



 This is just the beginning, where in honesty we are addressed about our own struggles by the God who knows us and inspired these words. And yet the words still surprise us. We need to recognize when we have words that we would not think please God, that He has already spoken them for us. No verse is more clear than that than three and four. When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled I cannot speak. When we have opportunity to pray at the end of this message, you might remember God is not put off by our honesty. He said the words we would not dare to say, and He put them down in His Word. Why do we need them? A friend of mine named Craig Childs writes these words, "My wife Jamie and I have had the normal brand of suffering which comes with the average American life. I come from a broken home which carries with it the typical amount of anguish and scarring, and we've already buried all of our grandparents and three of four parents. There were in our life vocational setbacks which wounded our hearts, rejections by those we counted among our friends, normal teenage suffering which though we have a different perspective on it now was very real then. We've had health sufferings as well, nothing exotic. Jamie had a non-fatal brain tumor that requires constant medication. I experienced the joy of exploded Achilles tendon surgery twice. I still walk with a limp. My neck surgery did not go well. I have constant neck, crick pain that runs down my arm and into my fingers. I could go on, but you undoubtedly recognize there's nothing extraordinary here, but you know even these non-exotic sufferings can take their toll on the vitality of faith, on the sincerity of trust, on our willingness and ability to progress in our Christian walk. Real life gets in the way of our spiritual formulas. We talk about progressive sanctification, that notion that we are going to in our lives become more and more Christ-like if we are following Christ. But somehow we interpret that to mean that I start with my life is a mess and I get to I'm like Moses in one straight line of progression.



 And that's just not the way it works. C.S. Lewis introduced us to the idea of undulating sanctification. We kind of go up and down, up and down and up and down and what creates the troughs are life's troubles and tragedies that corrode and callous and make us long for a vital faith. How do we how do we find it again? How do we speak about that which seems to be real and true enough even if not for the exotic pain for just the everyday struggles? The psalmist is telling us when he tells us one of the things that helps us on that path to the growth that we actually want and desire is honest description of what we really feel. I mean the psalmist says in verse 1 what he wants to feel. "I cry aloud to God, aloud to God and he will hear me." And then verse 2 he describes what he really faced. "In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted." What's he saying? It is obvious enough. I cry out to God and I can't be comforted. My life makes me cry. And that's in God's Word where we're just supposed to float along on high feelings and God takes care of it all and yet he says it so clearly if I'm honest my soul refuses to be comforted. I stretch out my hand to God all night long and it just doesn't seem to fix it. It gets worse than that. Verse 3 "When I remember God I moan. When I meditate my spirit faints." Hey I thought when you remember God you're supposed to be happy. It's supposed to fix it. Did these words surprise you? In the Bible it's actually the kindness of God to have an inspired writer of Scripture put on paper what we actually feel in our hearts but think God would not accept from us. As though God himself is giving permission and allowing us to recognize that sometimes the the simple fluffy Sunday school answers do not satisfy. My life is hard God. I am really struggling and when I think about God more I moan. I actually remember what you're supposed to do and when it doesn't satisfy when it doesn't fix it just makes me feel worse and honesty among all of us says we understand. We go through a heartache. We go through a tragedy. We just go through a long dry spell and somebody well meaning in the church tries to comfort us by saying well his eye is on the sparrow or God always has a purpose and we want to say will you get out of my face? Will you get real? And the psalmist is willing to say as much when I think about God I moan. Comes at us in waves at times. I was feeling a little bit of what some of you do when you recognize your past faithfulness. The joy of a different era of a different time. I had the the fun of going to summer camp with our teens last week and and in doing so just delighted in their worship. The fervor of it. The sincerity of prayers for the lost. The longing to pray that God would keep that faith real even when I returned to routines and friends who may challenge it. And when you sense that fervor when you watch young people just just filled with the delight of the Lord there are some of us who think and we say I can remember when I felt that way. But honestly there's been too much of life to scar and to callous and to make me a little more realistic than I even want to be. And I wish I could claim that joy but when I think about the God that I once knew I moan. Oh God where is the freshness and the love that I want?



 Not only do we feel the moaning we begin to question why God Himself would make us feel that way. God is addressed in verse 4, "You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I can't sleep and I can't speak. I'm so distressed."



 My friend writes of his non-exotic suffering, "Our first child was born ten weeks premature but it was not until he was 18 months old that he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. We were told that he would never walk, never talk, never be able to control his bodily functions, never even recognize us as his father and mother. We were devastated. I remember lying on the floor for eight hours the next day unable to pick my head off the carpet. I was swallowed up by the grief that was the deep despair of the death of our dreams. And in the face of such real world suffering, devoid of Sunday school simplifications and fluff, you can read the Psalms as they were intended. Verse 2, "In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearing. My soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God I moan. When I meditate my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled I cannot speak in the Bible." It says that. And there are the times that we need God to be that honest with us so that we can be that honest with him. God this is really what I feel like. This is really what I am going through. It hurts this bad



 because I was with the young people. I remembered some of my own teen suffering. When my family was coming apart, when I so grieved that my parents whom I so respected and so loved and who could get along with anybody else in the world except each other were having such pain that was the contagion of our family's despair. And learning at summer camp a song that almost became the refrain of my teenage years, the song without words. Tired yet I can't sleep. Wounded but I can't weep. Sinful but I can't pray. Father hear the words I cannot say. I am so troubled I cannot speak about it. I want to pray about it but I can't even do that. I know what it means to be wounded so badly I can't even bring the tears up anymore. And all that is what the psalmist allows us to experience by himself experiencing it and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit saying this is what pain really feels like and it doesn't push God away. He's actually put it in his word so that we will know we can describe our pain that way and he doesn't run away. We begin with honest description but God allows even more not just the honest description of what we are feeling but honest questions about what he is doing. My friend writes my son did walk but not on time. I will never forget my son's face when he noticed that his little sister could walk and he could not. We were outside in the front yard at Fort Benning, Georgia. She was 20 months younger. What I saw on my young son's face that day that he saw his little sister walking was a fundamental reckoning that something was terribly wrong with him. I went inside, locked the door of the bathroom and I cried and cried. Then there was that little incident in the apartment complex. Eight children were playing on the lawn together. Suddenly one said let's go to the playground. Left behind was a six-year-old with plastic casts on his legs crying wait wait on me don't leave me. That time his father writes I stepped out the back door sat on the lawn chair put my face in my hands and sobbed oh God why did you leave us? Does God allow us to ask questions like that? Will he tolerate it? Will he allow it? Look at his word. Verse 7 at the beginning the awful honest questions. Will the Lord spurn, reject forever? The end of verse 7. Will the Lord never again be favorable? Verse 8 at the beginning has his steadfast love. That's covenant love. The has said love. Has his steadfast love ceased. God's covenant love is his sovereign initiating love. The love that never fades because it's not based upon what we do or anything else that happens. It is based solely upon his sovereign will, heart, and goodness. To ask has God's steadfast covenant love ceased is an essence to us. Has God ceased being God?



 Is he not who he says he is at all? My friend writes for our money having to traverse through the world with a first child who is handicapped was more than enough suffering for our lifetime. However the king of the universe apparently did not agree with us. Clete was our fourth and youngest child several years behind his older brother. Clete our fourth died tragically at the age of 16.



 There is no way to describe to you the life of our precious son Clete who was such a balance of both passion and compassion. He was a fierce competitor on the soccer field or in a chess tournament. Yet his competitive spirit always, always, always was tempered with his high godly conscience. Clete was conquered by Christ when he was only eight years old. He never wavered in his passionate pursuit of God. When we lost Clete, I lost my hunting buddy, my fishing partner, my prayer partner, my ministry's greatest cheerleader. I miss my son



 terribly. And so the questions continue. The end of verse 8 are God's promises at an end for all time. Verse 9 at the beginning, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" Verse 9 at the end, "Has God's anger shut up his compassion?" What, what anger has so filled God that he has locked the closet on his love and now we don't have access to it. Such questions, such questions in the Word of God, the answers are there too. "Will the Lord reject forever?" Lamentations 3 answers, "The Lord will not reject forever, for if he causes grief then he will have compassion. Will the Lord never again show favor?" Psalm 102, at just the right time, "I will respond to you on the day of salvation, I will show you favor." Has his steadfast love ceased? Psalm 136, "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good." His steadfast love endures forever. Are God's promises at an end? Psalm 145, "The Lord is faithful to all his promises." Has God forgotten to be gracious? Psalm 145, 8, "The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love." Has God's anger shut up his compassion? Psalm 103, "He will not stay angry, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love toward those who reverence him." He answers all the questions. Should we believe it? We only will believe it if we don't just have honest descriptions of what we feel and honest questions about what God is doing, but honest reflections about what God has done. There are signal works of God where he is signaling who he is, what he is doing, and we are called as those who not only read his Word but interpret him to others and to our own hearts. How is God signaled to us in life his true nature and the promises being fulfilled as he in fact says in his Word? We reflect on the years of his favor. Verse 10, "I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High." The right hand, the hand of favor, the hand of sonship, the hand of privilege. I will appeal to the fact that God has been good. No, I'm not saying everything has been good. I'm not even saying the moment is good, but is there not some reflection on God having shown favor even if it was years past? My friend speaks of his own life despite the handicap and the loss of children this way. "I married the love of my life. I found a Savior for eternity. God has given fruit in my ministry, and he wrote of his handicap son these words. I could tell you more of the heartache of the parents of a handicap child.



 However, there's good news in this tale. The Lord was gracious to us beyond measure. My sons mind was not affected by cerebral palsy. In fact, he was and is an actual genius. High school valedictorian, state champion, short story writer, national merit finalist. He was and is a seventh wonder of the world, at least in our family.



 It is our calling not to be dishonest about what we feel, not even to be dishonest about our questions, but to be honest in our reflections. Is there anything where God has shown his hand of mercy? Is there any favor that has come upon my family, upon my life, upon my understanding? Is there anything that shows the years of God's favor, even if these seem to be the years the locusts are eating? Not only the years of God's favor, what about the record of God's deeds? What else can I look to? Verse 11 says, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord." Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. As always in the Psalms, remembering the mighty deeds of God are his works of redemption, his works of delivering a people, his work of keeping people from greater harm. Verses 14 and 15 explain, "You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people. I was looking at earth and drawing my conclusion about you, but you were working a work of eternity. And so I am to remember not just the years of God's favor here, but what are the deeds of God for eternal purposes? What can I claim? What can I point to that says God is working a work of redemption, and these afflictions which are but for a moment are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us? What work then can I point to?" My friend writes of his deceased oldest son,



 excuse me, youngest son. "One of the most precious possessions in my life is a note that Clete gave me on Valentine's Day 2005." He wrote these words, "Dad, I don't know how to thank you for



 all you have done. You may be the busiest man I know, but you always have time for me. I have always felt your love. The greatest thing that you have given me is a relationship with Jesus Christ. You have shown me how to honor God and truly love the Lord our God with all my heart, soul, and mind." His father writes, "I miss my son." But honest reflection on the mighty deeds of God who has redeemed eternity out of earthly pain redeems my soul from the pit. What has God done?



 What are the works of redemption and evidence?



 Even if earth reflects its fallenness, its brokenness, its pain, which God is honest in His word to tell us is the world in which we live. What has God done to tell us, "I am redeeming you. I am providing an answer to this." It is not immediately extrication from the world. It is living through this world, but it is living through this world with a real hope that this is not the final chapter. This is not the end, that bodies will be made whole, that souls will be united to their Savior, and we will be with Him and those who love Him for eternity. And in that, these present afflictions will seem but momentary.



 What is God doing to make that apparent? I recognize when I talk about a son who's had cerebral palsy, but he's doing well because his brain is so good. That does not speak to everyone here. For there are people here whose children's bodies and minds have not been healed in this life. And when I speak of a son who wrote a wonderful letter on Valentine's Day of his love for his Father on earth and his Father in heaven, there are parents here who have lost children who do not have such a letter in their possession. Is there anything else that God would have signaled to say, "Here is my nature. Here is who I am." There is a single work of God that the people of Israel would have pointed to, despite the sword and the wars and the famines and the betrayals. There's one thing they would always point to and say, "But by this we understand who God is."



 And for them it was their rescue from slavery in Egypt. Always, always, always. It was that work of redemption, that single work that would say, "But for this we might not trust God." "But for this



 we do trust God." It is described in verse 16 that for most of your Bibles is set off a little bit in the print to make clear that this is the single act the psalmist wants us to focus upon. He writes this work that for us is just so much about Sunday school lessons, why it became so important to the people of the Hebrew times. Verses 16 through 18 describe God's rescue as out of thunder and lightning and earthquake as though the world itself could not make sense. It was dark, it was bleak, they thought death was soon upon them and the earth itself was shaking. You know these descriptions. Verse 16, "When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep troubled, the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth younger, your arrows flashed on every side, the crash of your thunder was in the world when your lightnings lighted up the world, the earth trembled and shook." We know those descriptions. When our loss is so great, when our fears are so high that it seems like we can't even stand the earth is shaking beneath us. Whatever is lighting up the sky is is lightning and thunder and storm and we don't know what's going to make this right.



 The Israelites saw the Egyptians coming upon them and it seemed like God was doing nothing but thundering into their lives. But what was the consequence of all of that trouble? Verse 19, "Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen." Out of the trouble, God made a way. He made a way to His own promise and yet the people would say, "But we could not see your footprints.



 You were doing it and we could not see it. We could not make sense of it. We did not recognize your presence even while you were acting." And it is that measure of hope in our own hearts that we are calling upon when we don't see the hand of God, when we can't explain Him, when the obvious way is still not showing the footprints of God. God, I can't make sense of this, but the result was verse 20, "You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."



 We couldn't see you, we couldn't understand you, this didn't make sense to us. And yet you were leading.



 "For the Israelites, in all their future pain, in all their future rebellion, when they turned their back on God, they would always know that the way back was to the God who had rescued them from slavery." The God of freedom and the single act to which they would point was, "This is the God who took us out of slavery." This is the God who made it right even when we didn't understand it. It was that single act of freedom to which they said, "This I will remember. I will reflect upon this. He is the one who gave us freedom." But when they were thinking of freedom, they were just thinking of the freedom of their bodies, freedom from labor, freedom from overseers. We know something more. I know it's a day to talk about the freedoms of our nation, and that is glorious and wonderful. But the freedoms of our nation are themselves slight compared to the freedom of my soul. I am redeemed. I am no longer a slave to sin.



 I have been freed from the bondage of sin from its claim upon my heart and life, and not I only, but all who will name the name of Jesus. It is that freedom, not just of nations, but of souls that we say, "This is the single act of God." If nothing else makes sense, I put my lens of life upon the cross of Jesus Christ, and I say, "How am I to understand the nature of my God when all of life seems so troubled in this broken and fallen world?" And we say, "This is how you make sense. You look at the work of God in the life of Jesus Christ and in his death and in his suffering and in his resurrection. For then you have hope again that this is not the final chapter. This is not the end. The scarring and the callousness and the distance is not the final chapter.



 He makes us right with him at a soul level for eternity, and that is his promise. That means we can still grieve with honesty and still have hope. This last week I got another email from a friend.



 She writes this, "Tuesday was one of the best days of my life.



 I know that might sound weird because it was the day of my daughter's funeral. I don't know how to explain it, but to say God provided. He gave us this beautiful life with Sadie Margaret. He gifted Otis, my husband, and me as her parents, and second, he has given us confidence of her future. He answered our prayers for her healing forever because she is with her heavenly Father now. Sadie's service was filled with family, friends, church family, nurses, doctors, hospital staff, co-workers. I can't tell you what it means to parents to see so many people show up on a Tuesday afternoon when they don't have to and some traveling such long distances. The service was truly amazing. The music, the preaching, Otis's touching eulogy for his daughter. Just as he sang, yes he sang. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.



 We felt his spirit moving and it was the celebration of life I hoped it could be. We all witnessed what grieving with hope truly looks like. What do we believe about our God?



 We believe that things are happening in this world that are beyond our understanding and sometimes they are so hard. We have to describe ourselves to God as people who don't even have the words to address them. And we have to sometimes come in with questions about what are you doing? I could give you all the Sunday school sweet answers and it will not help my soul. So I just have to say, God, what is this about? I don't get it. And then we reflect. But he lets me speak to him and I called him my father and he sent me his son. And I am no longer a slave and my soul is set free forever and my body when is with him will be made right and not mine only. But the children that I have loved who are broken, the relatives who are departed but in Christ I shall see again. It will be made right and so while I grieve now not as those who have no hope. I believe that we are being led through the waters by the God of our salvation. And even when we say I do not understand this we say but God I understand you. You are the one who sent Jesus



 and leads your people out of slavery. You are the God who leads me and I will trust you. Yes, my God.



 You who sent Jesus, I will trust you. Father, would you work your word into our hearts, even the ones who are struggling with the storms of life that make no sense.



 Turn our eyes not to the storm but to the Savior. When we say in God we trust it's not just for our coins, it's not just for our patriotic songs, it is for our hearts sake. Teach us that we trust the God who leads us to the place where he wants us in profound love, in enduring faithfulness



 because this is the God who showed himself to us at the cross. So lead us to the one who's there we pray. Teach us of his heart and hold ours close to it we pray. In Jesus name, amen.