For Our Struggle (Psalm 80:1-19)

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Good morning. Thank you. My name is Shane, and it’s an honor to be with you this morning. Now, I made a deal with Brandon before I started, and however long I go, we’re just going to take away from his sermon next week. So settle in, get comfortable. But next week should be a little a little quicker of a service. That joke landed for a couple of people and no one else. But that’s alright. We’re going to be in Psalm chapter 80 this morning in your pew Bible. That’s page 474, so take a moment and turn there, if you would. And Psalm chapter 80, page 474, again, in your Bible.
Baseball. I love baseball. Hey, how about it? Hopefully, that’s not the only Amen and applause We get this morning. We talk about the Word of God, but baseball is the greatest. If you’ve had a chance, it’s almost like just feels natural. I’m gonna try and do this for as long in the service as we can. But if you know anything about me, if we’ve had a chance to interact, it’s probably come up that I’m a fan of baseball. I’m putting the fanatic in fan when it comes to baseball. And couple conversations later, it wouldn’t take long for you to discover that I’m a fan of the Chicago Cubs. We could say that this year, we’re doing great. It’s exciting. I heard booze. We’re going to pray for you prayer after the service. We’ll have leaders and elders up here. We’ll pray for you, hoping that you’ve come to the Cubs side. Now I love baseball, and the cubs are my team. Some really high highs, some really low lows. It’s good that we’re talking about the Cubs with lament, because 30 years of my life, many of them have been spent lamenting what could have been with them. But I love the game, and maybe you’re like me, you love the game, and I love the game, but I also love a place. Nobody’s ever said, Hey, go to your happy place. And some people might think, oh, a beach with the sand, or oh up in the mountains or a cabin in the woods. For me, when I think of my happy place, I think of 1060, West Addison Wrigley Field. It’s the best, right? They even have a video that they play at the beginning before games start, where Bill Murray is narrating, and he’s talking about the first time he ever stepped into the field. His brother covered his eyes real quick, and just that moment when his eyes opened, he got to see this majestic landscape. I feel that I am excited by that. I was so excited by my Fandom of the Cubs and my love of Wrigley Field that actually had a chance to work there in 2018 and let me tell you, it doesn’t wear off every time I go there. I absolutely love this place. Now, if you know anything about Wrigley Field, you know that it’s not one of those hip new age stadiums. It doesn’t have those meters that say, Hey, you know, get loud. Hey, you know, get excited. In fact, for a long time, they didn’t even have a video board at all, given its age and many, many warts, there’s been a lot of conversation about Wrigley Field? Should it stay up? It’s the second oldest Stadium in baseball for one, and it would make a lot of sense to do what many teams and different organizations have done, just bulldoze it and build anew, act like it never even existed. This was a really, real possibility for Wrigley Field when new ownership took over the Ricketts family and they found themselves in 2013 saying, hey, something needs to change with Wrigley. There’s leaks, there’s cracks. It’s an unsure foundation. There’s some work that needs to be done here, and fans braced for the worst. Would they really tear down Wrigley Field all up in like it never even happened before and to build something new? What were they going to do? Well, Pastor and author Paul David Tripp has a wonderful podcast, just some five to 10 Minute devotionals and talking about Psalm 80, he talked about this idea of construction and reconstruction, and he said that you can often tell what’s going to happen to something based on the size truck that is in the driveway. We know that to be true, right? If there’s bulldozers, if there’s dumpsters, there’s going to be a lot of work that’s going to be done, maybe even a remodel or a complete renovation. But if you see a handy man’s truck, or you see just a few people gathering, it’s probably not going to be a remodel. Maybe instead, they’re going to work. Work towards restoration, and thankfully, the Ricketts announced when they were talking about Wrigley Field, there would be no remodel. There would be no new stadium. Instead, they were going to work their best to restore Wrigley Field to its glory, to bring about the things that were true of it when it first was built, and hopefully would remain true of it for several years, Wrigley was to be restored. But Wrigley’s not the only thing that needs restoration. Is it? I mean, we can think in our minds or even in our shared experiences, many things that need restoration. Maybe you’re someone who’s into cars and you love this beautiful 60s Corvette. You want to bring it back to its glory. You want to restore it. Or you think back to I know myself, I have a project I want to work on this summer in restoring some a coffee table and end tables. I want to restore it and make it anew. But restoration isn’t just about fields or cars or tables or whatever we can think of. No restoration goes deeper. Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re longing for a sense of restoration in your heart, because it’s been a difficult season in some lives, the unthinkables happen. There’s been the loss of life, the loss of a job, the diagnosis of a disease, whatever it may be, and you’re sitting here saying, I need to be I want to be restored in my soul. This isn’t just a restoration idea, even that exists for individuals either no restoration is a communal reality. We long as a people to be restored, not just individually, but as a whole. I mean, just turn on the news doesn’t matter. The channel doesn’t matter, the time doesn’t matter the focus. We see the need for restoration exists across the entire globe. We think of the tragedy that struck in DC as the Jewish community is desiring to be restored in the midst of unthinkable loss of life. Or we look across the world and we see what’s happening in Israel, we see what’s happening in Ukraine, and we ask ourselves, Is there restoration that is possible, or does this all just mean nothing? It’s my hope this morning that as we walk through Psalm 80, we’re going to see perspective for our position. I hope that Psalm 80 will give us words for the worry that we experience, and I hope that Psalm 80 provides honesty from our heart, that we can speak and understand. What does it mean to take our deepest cries? What does it mean? What does it look like for our longings as a community to be brought before the Lord? So we’re gonna read Psalm 80 together, and then we’re gonna dig into it. So if you’re there, allow me to get there, and let’s read Psalm 80, as a community says this, hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit enthroned between the cherubim shine forth before Ephraim Benjamin and Manasseh Awaken Your might come and save us, restore us. O God, make your face shine on us that we may be saved. How long Lord, God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? For you have fed them with the bread of tears. You have made them drink tears by the bowl full. You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors and our enemies, mock us, restore us, God Almighty, make your face shine on us that we may be saved for you transplanted a vine from Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade. The mighty cedars with its branches, its branches reached as far as the sea and its shoots as far as the river. Why have you broken down its walls so that all who pass by pick its grapes. Boars from the forest ravage and insects from the field feed on it. Return to us, God Almighty, look down from heaven and see. Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted the sun you have raised up for yourself, for your vine is cut down. It is burned with fire at your rebuke, your people perish. Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man that You have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you. Revive us, and we will call on your name, restore us, Lord, God Almighty, make. Your face shine on us that we may be saved. Now we find ourselves here in the second week of our series, lamentable as we learn to grieve with Jesus, and it might be interesting, but when Brandon told me that we were going to be going here this month, I got excited. Was that weird? Excited to lament. Was so excited even to learn, because this idea is something that I believe is essential for believers as a community, as essential now as it’s ever been. And the beautiful reality is it will remain essential tomorrow, to remain essential the next day and the next day, all until we reach glory, the ability, the understanding and the decision to lament is as important to us as a community now as anything else we can spend our time doing now, Brandon laid down the framework for us last week by talking about what lament is as well as what lament is not. And the chances are that before he brought that up, lament was not something that was on your mind. In fact, I was telling somebody who I work with that I was given an opportunity to preach, and they were so excited. They say, what are you going to preach on? And I said, we’re talking said, we’re talking about lament. And they said, Oh, right. Lament gets a bad rap. If it gets any rap, oftentimes we want to just keep it in the dark, because we often think, okay, if I’m going to lament, it’s going to require me to put on a bunch of black clothing and listen to some really emotional music, recite some real terrible poetry, to scream at the wall or to scream in my car, just to complain. So often, lament gets equated to complaining. And we saw last week, and my hope is that we know this week that lament is not simply complaining, no. Lament is a decision. Lament is a directive. Lament is a determination to pray despite pain in order that we may trust. Said another way, lament is prayer in pain that leads to trust. And so Brandon laid our framework that we’re going to use this morning as we look at our passage, but I wanted to speak just for another moment before we jump in about the importance of lament, because again, we have this idea that to lament is frivolous, is some would even say immature or even a waste of time. And I want to submit that the opposite is true this morning, that the action of lament when a community comes together and seeks to lament, when a community comes together to pray in the midst of pain to the Lord that leads to trust requires a theology far greater than to simply ignore. Mark Vroegop, the president of The Gospel Coalition, had this to say when speaking of lament, he said that the seeds of lament are planted in the soil of what we believe. Said another way, lament reveals the faith of the gospel that we claim to have as our own. And so quickly, there are four things that lament demands you and I have a robust theology of if we’re going to enter into it. First, if we are going to enter the practice of lament, it means we must have a robust theology of sin. We understand that sin is wrong in the world today, and that it seems sometimes that it goes on without rival. It goes on without opposition, and the presence of sin reminds us that something’s wrong, and so lament then says we bring forth these feelings, these confusions, this sadness in the midst of this chaos. And say, God, how long will sin exist in your world? Secondly, lament requires that we have a robust theology of salvation. For you and I as believers in Jesus Christ, we know God’s plan of redemption, but we also know and see that redemption has not fully found itself here in our world today. We long for the redemption that’s to come, but we still desire to see redemption take place. And as we look and as we turn and as we go, we see places that have not been redeemed, people who have not been redeemed, situations that aren’t redeemed. And so lament demands that if we trust and believe that salvation is real, and that, as the Bible says, that the Lord is going to wipe away every tear, that there’ll be no more mourning, there’ll be no more sadness, there’ll be no more death. When we choose to lament and say, I don’t see it right now, I’m confused, but I believe that my Redeemer lives, and that by him and his blood. Let alone salvation is possible. Lament demands theology. Thirdly, lament demands a robust theology of God. For if we believe God to be over all things, in all things, through all things, we believe Jesus Christ, you have existed before creation, be in the midst of creation, and be seated over all of creation. Lament states our confidence in that, because who do we bring our cries to? Who do we bring our wonderings to? Who do we bring our longings of the soul to understand what’s happening to we bring them to God. And so when we lament, we show the world that, no, we don’t trust in man, nor do we trust in government. No, we trust in God alone. Finally, lament requires we have a robust theology about our future. Again, as believers in Jesus Christ, we can confidently say that we will be with our Lord and Savior in glory and so here and now, as those who are awaiting that truth when it gets difficult, when that statement of faith is a statement of faith wrapped in confusion or doubt or wondering or wandering, making that statement of faith in lament says to the world, I believe that God is in control. So lament then requires more theology and requires us to be thinkers of the Lord, thinking of His Word, experiencing His Word, applying it to our lives, than it would be to not. In fact, it would be easier for us to stick our head into the sand and sing everything’s going to be all right than it would be to lament. And so what we’re doing here is not a waste of time. What we’re doing here is not immature. What we’re doing here is essential. So let’s begin this essential practice together as we follow the same layout that Brandon gave for us last week. It’ll be in your bulletin, in your notes. We’re gonna look at this lament in four different sections. First, we’re gonna look at the cry. Then we’re gonna look at the complaint. After, we’ll take a look at the case, and finally, we’ll take a look at the confidence. Now, if you see in your bulletin, our lament does not follow 123, all the way to the end of the verse. This week, what we’re doing is we’re engaging in Hebrew poetry, and so we’re willing to allow the psalmist to work around this idea in a non linear fashion, said another way and just, quite frankly, laments messy, and because it’s messy, it doesn’t always follow a linear thought. Rest assured, we’re going to see this in our text together, and whether it’s all in order or not, we know and can trust that the lament we are about to go into here can give us the words that we need. So let’s begin together in our first section, cry verses one and two, which state hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit enthroned between the cherubim shine forth before Ephraim Benjamin and Manasseh awaken, your might come and save us. So our psalmist begins with an address. This isn’t uncommon. If you were to get a piece of mail, I know we don’t get a lot of mail. How about email? If you were to get an email this day. We was just talking to Jackie about this before the service. Everything’s electronic now, so we don’t get real mail. But think back to a second. You get a letter and you open it up. You know right away. If it’s mail that’s worth your time, if it says to shame, goes this says to valued customer, if it says to an individual, you’re like, I can probably just toss this. I don’t need a warranty on my home. I don’t need new windows, no. But when I get a letter that says, hey, to shame, I know to read it. Why? Because it’s been addressed to me. And what the psalmist is doing here is he’s taking the time to address the Lord who he’s going to be speaking to, hear us, Shepherd of Israel. Hear us. Shepherd of Israel. The Psalmist wants to make very clear at the beginning what I’m about to say. I’m saying to the Lord, it’s being said in community. We’re all here together in the midst of this. But I’m not spending my time addressing this to the government of the day. I’m not spending my time addressing this to my friend or my neighbor or my coworker. No, I’m taking this and before the community, we’re coming together and saying, hear us, O shepherd of Israel. It’s interesting, too, when you think about it though the fact that the psalmist begins by saying, hear us. I. Because what it means, and lest we jump on the back of the psalmist and accuse them of something, here is it seems like the psalmist has to say this because the way that life’s been going, it doesn’t sound like God’s listening. He’s saying, hear us, because he wants to make crystal clear that what’s about to be said is something of great importance, and he’s worried that the person he’s praying to isn’t hearing or hasn’t heard what’s been said before. Remember, lament is prayer in pain that leads to trust. It leads to trust. But in the midst of that pain, there’s some times that uncomfortable reality of saying, God, I need you to hear me. Because right now it sounds like I’m talking to a wall. Right now it feels like I’m doing these things. I’m saying these things. I’m here. I have my Bible open before you, and no one’s on the other end. And so when the psalmist says, Hear us, he’s saying, Lord, God, would you hear us? Because the way life is going right now, it doesn’t seem like you’re listening. But it’s not just in the hear us that we can take interest. It’s also in the fact that our psalmist refers to God as the shepherd of Israel. See, God is often referred to as Father, as creator, as Lord. But here the psalmist decides to say, shepherd. And so think to yourself, if you could for a moment, where else have we seen the Lord described as a shepherd at the end of Genesis, Jacob, at the end of his life, blesses Joseph and refers to God as the one who has been his shepherd all my life to this day, additionally, and probably most famously, Psalm 23 states that the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. Or even in John 10, Jesus refers to himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and the good shepherd who knows his own and is known by his own and so here, what the psalmist is doing is he’s addressing God as Shepherd as we walk through the remainder of the Psalm, I trust we’re able to see why he does that. But what he’s doing here is he’s saying, hear us, our shepherd, because right now it feels like the sheep have no protection. Hear us. O Shepherd, because right now it feels like the lion is on its way and you’re nowhere to be found, and we can’t protect ourselves. We can’t defend ourselves. We don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to say, we don’t know where to go. We don’t even really know who we are as a people. Hear us, O shepherd of Israel. Why? Because, again, as Psalm 23 says, What does a shepherd do? A shepherd is someone who makes it so that their sheep lack nothing. A shepherd is someone who leads sheep to lie down in green pastures. Psalm 23 says that the Lord is our shepherd, and that because he’s our shepherd, goodness and mercy will define our steps, and because the Lord is our shepherd, we will fear no evil. And so the psalmists cry on behalf of the of the community that’s gathered is to say, hear us, O shepherd of Israel, we need you to be our shepherd again. Hear us, O shepherd of Israel, we need you to be our shepherd again. And it’s the hope of the psalmist that as they go here, they’re going to be able to see and know, once again, that the Lord truly is their shepherd. We as a community, find ourselves in the same place when we look at the world around us, when we look at things that are occurring, when we open up, whether it’s our our phones or our tablets. We turn on our TV and we see the news. We see heartache. We see heartbreak. And where do we begin? Who do we cry out to do we do we open up our doors and yell facing Washington, DC, to say, hey, government, hear us. We need to make change. We need something to be different. If we do that, it falls on deaf ears. If we go and we see a need that exists and we see that people aren’t being cared for or tended to, there are some amazing organizations that are doing amazing things, but we still wouldn’t open our window and shout to them and ask that they would bring restoration that we’re seeking. No what we have to do as a community of believers is to instead spending our time opening the doors and screaming or or looking out the window and shouting to getting on our knees instead and praying and saying, hear us, oh shepherd of Israel. We need you. And just as we need to do that, the Psalmist begins in doing that. Why again? Because lament is prayer. It’s not. Just any prayer, though, it’s prayer and pain that leads to trust, and so we need to, like the psalmist, pray together in the midst of pain, pray together in the midst of confusion, and allow ourselves to be led to trusting again. That’s the idea when we lament, we’re actively saying, I don’t see right now, but I know that if I commit myself, if we commit ourselves, if, whether it’s community groups, Journey groups, the community as a whole, if we commit ourselves to saying, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know who does we’re committing ourselves not only to praying and pain, but we’re also committing ourselves to the end of that sentence too, prayer and pain that leads to trust. So if you find yourself this morning, if we find ourselves this morning as a community, saying, I don’t know if I’m trusting, we don’t know if we’re trusting, we can begin to lament with the assurance that as we seek the face of the Lord, we will trust him in the end, our psalmist continues, though, because now that he’s gotten the attention, he’s here at the beginning of the cry, he now moves to this idea of the complaint, and here we’re going to do Some jumping around in the scriptures, but our lament continues. After having heard the cry, we now need to go and see what is the complaint that’s being made before the people. Verse four, where we’ll start in the subsequent verses that follow, and then verse 12, which we’ll get to in just a moment, formulate the complaint of our community, verse four says this, how long Lord God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? For you have fed them with the bread of tears. You have made them drink tears by the bowl full. You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors and our enemies mock us. So after crying out to the Lord, the Psalmist begins to share the complaint of what’s taking place. Remember, he’s saying this to God. He’s saying this to the one who has been the shepherd of the people before, who he’s seeking to see be the shepherd of the people again. And so when the psalmist says, How long Lord, God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? He’s saying, How long Shepherd, will you not be a shepherd to us? For it feels as though you’re allowing a lot of things to happen. See here in the Psalms and in the life of the nation of Israel, who’s bringing forth this psalm. It’s in this moment that they’re looking back at their history and saying, it feels like God’s not here right now. Now, if you know the history of Israel, if you’ve read through the Old Testament before, you know that the Lord has brought them through so many different things, countless battles, walking across the sea, leading them through the desert land. And what the people are saying right now is not, Hey, God, could you take your hand of opposition off of us? Because it doesn’t seem like the Lord’s opposing them, but rather, what it seems like it’s saying, Hey, God, I’m not worried about your hand, but I’m worried about your eyes, because it seems like you’re not even looking at us. It seems like you’re not even taking note of us right now. It feels as though you have anger that’s towards us. That’s not in a making our life miserable, but it’s in a late making our life absent. And as a result of that, we don’t have bread to eat. As a result of that, we don’t have drink to calm our thirst. And as a result of that, we’ve gone from being this nation of Israel to be an object of derision to our neighbors, and even the source of mockery, the Lord seems to be in a holding pattern, and God’s holding pattern makes the nation uncomfortable because he doesn’t know how long the holding pattern will take place if you ever flown before, but chances are that you have and when you’re there at the airport, and you’re getting ready to go, and it’s time to board, and then all of a sudden they come on the intercom and they say, We apologize, but we’re going to have a delay in our boarding process, your flight will not be taking off on time. What’s the first question that you think of in your head? When? Okay? Like, that stinks. That’s unfortunate. That’s terrible. But like, when are we going to board, and when is this flight going to take off, and when are we going to get to our destination? The Nation here is in the midst of what sounds like the Lord has come over the intercom and said that there’s going to be a delay, but hasn’t given the details of how long or when, and so the people are confused and are uncomfortable. The people are confused and uncomfortable. You. Yeah, and they’re uncomfortable, because God has made a habit in the nation’s existence of they pray. They interact with him. He answers. They look for and long for. They hope he arrives. And right now, none of that’s taking place. So the people are confused, because isn’t this the Lord who’s supposed to hear our pleas, who’s supposed to give ear to our cry, and then, in so doing, after hearing and listening, respond, so the people are confused, see, because God’s nature has been to show, has been shown to be the one of hearing and answering when there’s a cry being there. In fact, the Psalmist has heralded the Lord for answering him. Psalm 66 goes as far as to say this, come and hear all you who fear God. Let me tell you what he has done for me, for I cried out to him with my mouth. His praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished my sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened, but God surely listened and has heard my prayer. So praise be to God who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me. So the psalmist has even shared, and the people have even shared together. God’s a God who answers, but right now he doesn’t seem to be answering. He doesn’t seem to be caring about their position. Our psalmist continues in verse 12 by saying, Why have you broken down the walls so that all who pass by pickets grapes, the once promised and powerful nation who’s been established by the hand of the Lord, now has a wall that’s been opened and so that those who pass by are picking the grapes, the enemies, boars from the forest, insects from the field, are coming, and what was once held dear and captive and protective seems as though it’s no longer return to us. God Almighty, verse 14, look down from heaven and see watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted the sun that you have raised up for yourself, for your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire, and at your rebuke, your people perish. So the nation is sharing. Hey, God, what you’ve done before, it seems like you’re not doing anymore. And you’re allowing everything that’s been established that we thought and believed and trusted and had confidence had come from you is going away. Our proud city, our strong vine, our ability to eat and to drink and to care for ourselves has now been taken away. What do we do? Where do we go? What is the point of all that you’ve built, God’s people feel unprotected, and when they’re unprotected, they feel uncared for. And that’s not just unique to the nation of Israel. That’s not just unique to the psalmist. That has been possibly our experience too. We’ve been through seasons of our lives. Maybe you’re in the midst of it right now where it feels as though the Lord has not been caring, or the Lord has not been kind, but we’ve seen his hand before, and so we stand confused. There’s a new show that’s coming to Fox. Maybe you’ve seen commercials for it before. I think it is already out, called extracted. Maybe you’ve heard it before, but the idea of the show is like a bear gryll survivalist type idea, where people go into the wilderness and they’re gonna survive as long as they can, with as much as they can, for however long it takes. But there’s a twist that while they’re out there in this survivalist camp, their family is back at a command center and base watching everything happen, and they have the opportunity at any time during the show to hit a big red button that says extract. So if it gets too hard, if it gets too difficult, if the people seem to be suffering or confused if they haven’t eaten in a few days, or they haven’t drank, or it looks as though they’re physically ill, a family member can sit there and write in the moment, extract and take them out of this situation and return them to life where they have what they need and don’t have to worry. Here in Psalm 80, it seems like we’re seeing an episode of this show play out where the psalmist is is doing what they can. They’re showing what they can. They’re saying, God, we need you to extract us. Because right now we don’t get it right now, we don’t see it right now. We’re not experiencing it. And for some reason, the Lord isn’t pressing that extract button. For some reason, the people feel as though the Lord is allowing them to continue just to live and to be confused and to not know what to do
forever. And so our psalmist moves now in its third section, from going from this idea of, I’ve made my cry, I’ve stated my complaint. God, would you extract us from this experience? Experience we’re in where we cannot see you, we cannot hear you, and we’re not experiencing you. He’s moved from cry and complaint to now making his case. Now the psalmist is making their case, and this third part we see happen throughout our Psalm in three different places. So look with me at verse three, look with me at verse seven, and look with me at verse 19, as all three say this, restore us, O God. Make your face shine on us that we may be saved. The case or the what the psalmist is desiring for the Lord to do is plainly seen here. God, would you restore us for right now? We don’t feel as though we’re seen. Would you restore us for right now? We don’t know what’s going on. Would you restore us and bring us back into right relationship with you. Let’s look at this case here and what the psalmist is saying, the case of the nation that it’s been made, it’s been raised saying, God, we need you to restore us. What do we need restoration from? We need you to restore us back to the place where you were our God, back to the place where you were, who we called to, who we longed for. We saw your hand at work in our lives. Would you restore us to that reality? And it’s interesting what the psalmist says as he finishes those verses where he says, restore us, O God, make your face shine on us that we may be saved. The case that the psalmist is making is, Hey, God, right now, it seems like you’re not paying attention to us right now. It seems as though your back is turned to us. And so if you would just turn, if we would just see the light of your face once again, we would be saved if we could see the shine of your face, we would experience the salvation we long for. That’s what the psalmist is saying. The psalmist is saying, we need to be restored, and the only way to be restored is to be restored by God. The psalmist understands, and it’s a word for us this morning, as we find ourselves in the midst of lament that the only way that anything in this life matters makes sense, receives true and legitimate healing is by God. The Psalmist isn’t asking to be restored by anyone other than the Lord he knows is capable of doing the restoration. And so we as a community, when we gather together, when we call out and cry, to understand what’s happening in this world, need to have an understanding like the psalmist does, that there’s no other name, there’s no other institution, there’s no other reality other than the Lord that will bring us the healing that we seek. God and God alone is capable of turning our sorrow and pain into trust and belief. I So we’ve seen the cry, we’ve understood the complaint, and we’ve heard the psalmist make their case. There exists now just one more part of our Psalm to look at and as our Psalm, as this lament, reaches its crescendo, I think this here is where we, too as a community, can reach a crescendo of confidence as well. See for our final section, is confidence. Why is the psalmist making this cry, why do we gather here together as a people united under one name at Cityview Community Church, to spend our time, to wake up early, to give up part of our weekend to praise the name of the Lord? Why do we do this? Because we have a confidence in the god we’re serving, and this confidence is not unlike the confidence that our psalmist then shares with the Lord as well. Look with me, if you would, at verse eight, where it says, For you transplanted a vine from Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade. The mighty cedars with its branches, its branches reached as far as the sea. It shoots as far as the river. Verse 17 says, Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man that You have raised up for yourself. For then we will not turn away from you, revive us, and we will call on your name, John. So what’s the psalmist doing here in this final section, the Psalmist is reciting the resume of God that’s been seen to act before. This is why lament is essential. Because lament says, God, I’ve seen you do it before, and I’m asking that you do it again. Lament is saying, I don’t understand what’s happening now, but I haven’t understood what’s happened in the past before and when I’ve been confused. You know, when I was younger, I might have run to my parents. When I was growing up, I might have run to a mentor. But here, right now, in this midst of life with its big questions and its confusion, with chaos, with war, with not knowing what the future holds, the answer of my parent will be insufficient. The answer of a friend will not do what it needs to do. I need to hear an answer from the Lord alone. And this isn’t the Lord who is far off. This isn’t the Lord who sits on a throne that cannot be seen. No, this is the Lord who has been in the midst of the muck, who’s been in the midst of the chaos, who’s been in the midst of everything, and has remained faithful. See, the Psalmist is talking here about the Lord’s resume, but you and I as people on this side of the cross, we have more than just the resume that’s here. We have the cross of Jesus Christ that states and says that he is the Son of God who came down from heaven to earth and showed with once for all confidence that no matter the question, no matter the plea, no matter the cry, no matter where we find ourselves in our life, we can confidently call upon the name of the Lord, and He will hear us. We can confidently call upon the name of our God, and He will see us. We can confidently declare the name of Jesus, and we will find trust for our pain, cry, complaint, case and confidence. Here in Psalm 80, we get an example and a picture of what it looks like when a nation makes the decision to call out to the Lord. And our big idea, similar to what last week’s was, is this, we need to learn to lament together before the Lord. We need to learn to lament together before the Lord, and we’re actually going to have a chance to do that as a community of faith coming up in the month of June for our quarterly prayer gathering. June 22 I believe, is the date. You’ll get more details in the pulse, but we’re going to enter into a communal night of lament, asking in the midst of pain, shared pain, God, would you help us to see and trust you more? God, would you help us to see and understand what you are doing in our life. Lament is prayer and pain that leads to trust, and it’s our hope that as we, as a community, commit to this idea of prayer, as we walk together in trust and in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that his name will be made much and that the world around us will see that there is another way to respond to pain, there’s another way to respond to confusion, there’s another way to respond in the midst of chaos. It doesn’t have to be this statement or that. It doesn’t have to be this great big picture or uprising or or sit in or, or whatever it may be. No in the midst of pain, we, as believers in Jesus Christ, have the opportunity to show a world that’s watching that what we do with our pain is we pray, and through prayer we trust. So pray with me now, if you would, Jesus, we come before you here in your midst, and we just say, there’s no one we’d rather speak to about these matters. For you are the hands that hold the world. You made it. You sustain it, and you rule over it even now, God, though it may be hard in seasons, in time to see your hand working, though it may seem like our psalmist said that it feels as though you’ve turned your back to us help us to know and to see and to trust through lament, that you are close to the brokenhearted. You are close to those who seek your face, that you are that good shepherd, and in your shepherding, we lack nothing help us to lament as a people united, trusting and believing that you are in control and help the world that sees a. US lament, know that it is not in a confidence of flesh, but in the faith that’s put in the risen Lord Jesus that we can stand and say that pain doesn’t have the final word. Bless us, Jesus, we pray in Your name, Amen.