Questioning God's goodness takes me to a BAD PLACE . (Ps 13:1-2)
The Progression of Depression:- I am FORGOTTEN . (Ps 13:1a)
- I am FORSAKEN . (Ps 13:1b)
- I am DEPRESSED . (Ps 13:2a)
- I am DEFEATED . (Ps 13:2b)
Moving from "God is Good?" to "God is Good!"
- Get REAL with God. (Ps 13:3-4)
- Look at the BIG PICTURE . (Ps 13:5-6)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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00:00-00:10
Psalm 13, we're going to read this before we get out and look through it, but Psalm 13 says, "How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?
00:12-00:14
How long will you hide your face from me?
00:16-00:21
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
00:22-00:25
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
00:27-00:30
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
00:31-00:43
Light up my eyes, lest I sleep, the sleep of death, lest my enemies say I prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
00:46-00:51
But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
00:52-00:58
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
01:01-01:02
God is good.
01:03-01:08
And in this series through Psalms, we've seen that the goodness of God affects me.
01:09-01:11
And we've seen that God's Word is good.
01:12-01:16
And last week we discussed how God's grace is good.
01:17-01:28
But this week, notice on your outline, the title of this message is "God is Good." But I want you to draw a question mark beside that statement.
01:30-01:40
So the title of the message today really is, "God is Good." The punctuation makes a big difference, doesn't it?
01:42-01:58
And at the risk of sounding like a grammar Nazi, and being someone that maybe sometimes corrects people's grammar as they're speaking, or especially if I read something, my mind, my eyes just drawn to that stuff.
01:59-02:24
The punctuation is very important. If you don't believe me, just think about the difference between these two statements. "Let's eat," comma, "Grandma." Is punctuation important?
02:25-02:25
Yeah.
02:26-02:27
Here's a little marriage tip.
02:27-02:39
Guys, when you mess up and you're apologizing to your wife, make sure that you enunciate the right punctuation.
02:39-02:41
It might not even hurt you to say the right punctuation.
02:41-02:51
You know, guys, you mess up, you say, "I'm sorry, comma, I love you."
02:53-02:54
[laughter]
02:54-02:55
That's nice.
02:55-02:57
Because if you don't have the comma, what do you got?
02:57-03:03
"I'm sorry, I love you." That doesn't fly in my house.
03:04-03:05
No, this is no joke.
03:05-03:07
I saw a magazine cover.
03:07-03:10
It was for some pet magazine.
03:11-03:15
The cover said, Rachel Ray was on the front.
03:15-03:16
You know Rachel Ray, the cook?
03:17-03:28
The cover said, "Rachel Ray finds inspiration "in cooking her family and her dog." (audience laughing) Like, I think there's some commas missing.
03:29-03:36
Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking, comma, her family, comma, and her dog, but that's not what it said.
03:36-03:39
It said she found inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.
03:40-03:43
And I thought to myself, maybe Rachel Ray should just eat graham rock.
03:46-03:57
And the question mark here is important because when we talk about God is good, I've already shared with you that that's the most doubted doctrine of the Bible.
03:58-03:59
You can line them all up.
04:00-04:04
Creation, eschatology, the Trinity, virgin birth.
04:06-05:06
Those things are all debated, but the number one doubted doctrine in the Bible is just simply this one, "God is good." And we get to a Psalm like this where that exclamation point we've been using, "God is good!" There are times that we say, "God is good?" Sometimes we do say it, not with that exclamation point, but we say it with a question mark and I shared with you when we started this series in my worst moments I've been there and you've been there you've been there if you're going to be honest with me and honest with yourself you've had moments in your life that you're like I know that God's good but I'll tell ya I'm just not feeling it right now I'm just not but I got some good news for you if you've ever had that thought and you have You are in great company.
05:08-05:15
Because you know, when I was planning out this psalm series, every, you know, July or August I go, "Wait for a week and plan a preaching calendar." And I think last year it was in August.
05:17-05:32
But when I was planning the preaching calendar, understand, when I was like, "I want to do this series in psalms called 'God is Good '," but when I picked the psalms that I was going to preach, I didn't have one of those giant, you know, bingo rollers with the little ping pong balls in them.
05:32-05:34
I'm like, I wonder what Psalms I'm going to do.
05:35-05:38
Psalm 100, you know, like the Pennsylvania lottery.
05:38-05:40
Okay, well, we're going to do Psalm 32.
05:40-05:42
Apparently, that wasn't how that came about.
05:43-05:44
I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
05:44-05:50
The reason that I picked the Psalms that I did is because there are different types of Psalms.
05:50-05:53
And my goal was to cover some of the major types.
05:53-05:58
For example, when we did Psalm 100, that Psalm is called a Psalm of Praise.
05:58-06:02
When we did Psalm 19, that's called a Psalm of Wisdom.
06:02-06:04
And there's other Psalms like that.
06:05-06:06
Psalms of Praise and Psalms of Wisdom.
06:06-06:12
When we did Psalm 32, that's categorized as a Psalm of Thanks or Thanksgiving.
06:12-06:14
Many different types of Psalms.
06:16-06:23
But do you know the type of Psalm that by far outnumbers every other type of Psalm?
06:23-06:24
Do you know what it is?
06:24-06:26
They're called Psalms of Lament.
06:27-06:27
Did you know that?
06:29-06:32
There's individual laments and there's community laments.
06:33-06:39
But laments outnumber every type of psalm, other types of psalm.
06:41-06:45
Because it's very common to the human experience and the truth is we've all been there.
06:47-06:51
If you've ever had to deal with an addiction, you've been there.
06:52-06:58
If you've ever had to deal with a family member that has an addiction, you've been there.
07:00-07:09
If you've ever dealt with fear, maybe fear over their downsizing at my work, I might lose my job, what am I going to do for my family?
07:10-07:12
If you've ever dealt with fear, you've been there.
07:14-07:18
If you've ever dealt with a chronic health issue, you've been there.
07:21-07:26
If you've ever dealt with a death in your family, you've been there.
07:28-07:35
If you've ever dealt with a marriage that's falling apart, you've been there.
07:36-07:44
If you've ever dealt with adult children that are not walking with the Lord, you have been there.
07:47-07:56
If you've ever dealt with any type of disappointment in life, you know, I was really expecting this to happen, I was counting on this to happen, and it didn't happen.
07:57-07:58
Why didn't it happen?
07:59-07:59
You've been there.
08:02-08:10
And in those times, we're walking through the valley, and we're asking ourselves, "God is good?
08:12-08:39
God is good?" but God is good? I mean I might think I know it in my head but my heart right now is not sure. Well we're gonna get to a much better place today. First of all in your outline, questioning God's goodness takes me to a bad place.
08:41-08:48
Let's look at this psalm again together shall we? When you're going through a trial you lots of questions.
08:50-08:53
One of the questions you might have is, why is this stuff happening?
08:55-08:57
How much worse is it going to get?
08:57-08:59
Or how is this going to be resolved?
09:00-09:06
But the number one question that people have when they're going through a trial, you notice in verses one and two, it's the same question four times.
09:07-09:07
Did you see it?
09:08-09:08
What's the question?
09:10-09:11
How long, right?
09:12-09:14
That's the number one question when you're going through a trial.
09:14-09:16
How long am I gonna have to go through this?
09:17-09:17
How long?
09:18-09:19
How long until I'm done with this?
09:19-09:23
How long until this trial that I'm going through is in the rear view mirror?
09:27-09:31
In other words, how much more of this can I take?
09:32-09:34
Honestly, how much more of this can I take?
09:34-09:42
Because we know that hard days seem to go slow and great days seem to go fast, don't they?
09:43-09:43
True or false?
09:44-09:45
I don't have to convince you.
09:45-09:46
Do you know why?
09:46-09:48
I don't need to convince you, is because you live in Pittsburgh.
09:51-09:52
What does that have to do with anything?
09:54-09:57
In Pittsburgh, how fast does summer go by?
09:58-09:59
Yeah, right Laura?
10:00-10:00
Snap, it's over.
10:01-10:05
Okay, follow up question, Laura, since you seem to be on the ball this morning.
10:06-10:08
How fast does winter seem to go by?
10:09-10:11
How long was last winter?
10:11-10:12
Seriously.
10:13-10:17
Isn't it true that the hard days seem to go longer than the easy days?
10:18-10:19
We go through that every year on our calendar.
10:20-10:21
How about vacation?
10:23-10:25
How about vacation? You guys got vacation coming up, right?
10:26-10:27
How long does vacation last?
10:28-10:31
Like, we just unpacked and we're packing up again?
10:32-10:33
So a week of vacation flies by.
10:34-10:38
How long does the work week go by compared to the vacation week?
10:39-10:39
Do you see the point?
10:41-10:41
The point is this.
10:43-10:45
When you're having great days, they seem to go by quickly.
10:46-11:02
When you're having hard days, when you're going through a trial, time seems to drag, it drags, it drags, it drags, and you get to ask yourself the question that David asked here, how long?
11:04-11:06
How much longer am I gonna have to put up with this?
11:07-11:10
How much longer am I gonna have to endure this?
11:10-11:11
When's it gonna end?
11:12-11:16
I can't take anymore. I can't go one more day living like this.
11:16-11:20
I just can't do it. That's why David says how long?
11:21-11:34
How long? You know I was studying that this week and you'll see with me here that these questions aren't really random or repetitive. These questions are actually a progression. Jot this down in your outline.
11:35-11:38
These questions are sort of a progression of depression.
11:40-11:42
Because they're all a little bit different.
11:42-11:44
Notice first, look at the first question.
11:44-11:46
How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever?
11:49-11:51
The first step in the progression of depression is this.
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I am forgotten.
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I am forgotten.
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Do you see that in your text?
11:58-12:02
He's like, God just forgot about me.
12:02-12:03
You know what?
12:04-12:05
Maybe benefit of the doubt.
12:05-12:08
I'm sure God has bigger fish to fry.
12:08-12:17
And I don't know, God's got this whole global thing happening and maybe He just forgot about me.
12:18-12:20
You know, I'm kind of insignificant.
12:22-12:24
Maybe He just forgot.
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And maybe He'll get around to me.
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Maybe at some point He'll remember and He'll get back around to me.
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And then it progresses to letter B. Look at the second question.
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"How long will you hide your face from me?" To write this down, not only I am forgotten, it steps to I am forsaken.
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And you see the obvious difference between the two, don't you?
12:54-13:05
This is much worse than the first, because the first is like, "Well, maybe God forgot about me in the second question. No, no, he knows, but he's hitting his face for me.
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This is intentional. God knows what's going on in my life, and do you know what he's doing?
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He's like, "I know what's going on, but I'm just not paying attention. I'm hiding my face.
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I'm not paying attention.
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I don't care. I don't care." If you and I both know that's not true in reality, but is that truly how it feels sometimes?
13:29-13:49
or false. It does. There's time you know it's not true, but there's times you feel like God, you see this and you're up in heaven going, not my problem today. It feels like that. That's the next step in this depression progression. I'm forgotten, I'm forsaken.
13:49-14:00
And then you see the next question here. I'm depressed. Let her see I am depressed. How this doesn't sound like a man depressed.
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How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
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How long must I take counsel in my soul?
14:12-14:14
You know something interesting about people?
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People are great at giving other people counsel.
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You're great at giving other people counsel, but you are lousy at counseling yourself.
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You are.
14:27-14:29
You are lousy.
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You are the world's worst therapist when it comes to counseling yourself.
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You are.
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You're terrible.
14:36-14:42
You should not recommend to go to yourself to get counseling from yourself because you are a horrible counselor.
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You're horrible.
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You're great for other people, sure, but you're absolutely horrible counseling yourself when you're down.
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You know why?
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Here's the things that you say to yourself.
14:57-15:00
I'm so lame. I'm a loser. My life stinks.
15:01-15:04
Why does this happen to me? You wouldn't say that to somebody else, would you?
15:04-15:06
Would you say that to somebody else?
15:07-15:13
You know, my friend Ken comes to me and he's like, "Pastor Jeff, I'm just having a really hard time." You know why, Ken? Because you're a loser.
15:13-15:17
That's why you're having a hard time. I would never say that to Ken.
15:17-15:21
Because I don't believe that. But you know what, I say that to myself all the time.
15:22-15:24
You know why you're struggling, Jeff? It's because you're a loser.
15:25-15:27
You can't do it. You're inadequate.
15:29-15:32
You're a failure. That's how I counsel myself.
15:32-15:40
And if you're honest, that's how you counsel yourself. Something like that, you're not good enough. That's exactly what he's saying here.
15:41-15:45
Do you see that? How long must I take counsel in my soul? I'm counseling myself.
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That is a bad idea, counseling yourself.
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And then I'm depressed.
15:55-15:57
Look at the next statement he makes.
15:57-16:01
He says, "And have sorrow in my heart all the day." I don't need to sell you on this.
16:03-16:09
But when you're depressed over some trial that's going into your life, it consumes your every thought.
16:10-16:15
It's the first thing you think of in the morning, and it's the last thing you think of when you go to bed.
16:15-16:18
It's what you think about when you're getting ready for work.
16:18-16:20
It's what you think about when you're in the car going to work.
16:20-16:22
It's what you think about while you're at work.
16:22-16:24
It's what you think about when you're on your way home from work.
16:25-16:27
It's what you think about when you are home from work.
16:27-16:29
And it's what you think about when you're getting ready for bed.
16:29-16:32
This just keeps going over and over all the day.
16:32-16:33
Sorrow all day. Sorrow all day.
16:34-16:36
Keep replaying the tape in your...
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The young people don't know what tape is.
16:39-16:46
Keep replaying the digital media in your mind over and over and over and over and over.
16:48-16:50
That's somebody that's depressed.
16:50-16:59
So we go from "I'm forgotten" to "I'm forsaken" to "I'm depressed." Look at this last one.
17:00-17:10
"How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" Just write this down. "I am defeated." At this point, I'm not even fighting.
17:11-17:16
At this point, I'm looking for a white flag to start waving. I'm defeated.
17:17-17:23
Now there's a couple mentions in this song that you've seen, a couple mentions of enemy.
17:24-17:36
You're like, "Well, who's this enemy that David's talking about?" And I, you know, this week I went through, you know, a dozen scholars and commentators and theologians much smarter than me, and they all agree.
17:38-17:39
We don't know.
17:40-17:40
We don't know.
17:40-17:56
But you know what, I think God's Word intentionally keeps it generic because it applies to every one of us and we don't miss the point. It doesn't matter who the enemy is, what matters is the point that he's trying to make and the point is just simply this.
17:57-18:12
This is rock bottom. This is rock bottom. I've been forgotten, I've been forsaken, I'm depressed and now I just feel completely defeated. I'm defeated. It's over. Nothing is ever going to change. Life is always going to be like this.
18:12-18:15
nothing can fix this. Does that sound familiar?
18:16-18:19
That's somebody who is defeated.
18:21-18:23
That's the progression of depression.
18:24-18:26
That's not why we came here, is it?
18:27-18:38
So on your outline, we're going to move from "God is good" to "God is good! Who's with me?" Okay, let's do it. Let's do it.
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This is real easy to understand.
18:44-18:45
Real easy to understand.
18:45-18:46
Extremely hard to apply.
18:48-18:53
You can teach your children this and you're going to leave with it up here.
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The question is, are you going to do something with it?
18:55-18:56
That's the question.
18:57-19:00
So how do we get from God is good to God is good?
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Number one, get real with God.
19:05-19:06
Get real with God.
19:08-19:09
Look at verse three with me again.
19:11-19:13
He says, "Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.
19:14-19:25
Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." He says, first of all, "Light up my eyes." You know, I'm living in this dark cloud.
19:25-19:28
God, I need you to revitalize me.
19:30-19:35
I'm in this dark place right now, God, and what I need is for you to show up and revitalize me.
19:38-19:40
He talks about, you know, what's this?
19:43-19:44
Lest I sleep the sleep of death.
19:45-19:46
What's he talking about?
19:47-19:49
Many of you know exactly what he's talking about.
19:49-19:57
Because if you've ever been to the point of being depressed, where you feel like, I just wish I were dead, my life is over.
19:58-20:00
It's not even worth being alive anymore.
20:00-20:02
That's how depressed I feel.
20:02-20:04
my life is completely worthless.
20:06-20:07
He's saying that's where I am.
20:08-20:17
And God, unless you show up and you revitalize me, unless you show up, God, and light that spark in me again, I might as well be dead.
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And here's what we take from this.
20:22-20:24
You see, God wants you to be honest with Him.
20:26-20:35
And I know as a young Christian, when I started reading the Bible, I remember I was shocked when I read the Psalms. I really was. I was shocked.
20:35-20:39
I'd be reading the Psalms and I'm like, "You can't say that to God.
20:40-20:45
Can you believe what he said to God? He just accused God of hiding his face from him?
20:45-20:50
Wow, I can't believe he said that." Well, that's the beautiful thing about the Psalms.
20:51-20:53
They're honest. They're honest.
20:55-20:59
I don't know where you're from, but where I'm from, life isn't always rainbows and puppies.
20:59-21:04
Okay, I don't live in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, and the Psalms reflect that.
21:05-21:06
Life is really hard sometimes.
21:08-21:11
And the great news is, I can be really honest with God about that.
21:12-21:13
God wants me to be honest with Him.
21:15-21:17
And newsflash, I can't hide anything from Him anyways.
21:19-21:41
I can't get down on my knees and say, "God, everything's okay, just check it in," and walk away from that, and God's up in heaven going, "I noticed a little trouble in young Jeffrey's voice today. I wonder if there's something concerning him. I wonder if Jeff might be mad at me for something. I can't hide anything from God. He already knows.
21:42-21:53
So that's why when you get in your face and say, "God, I gotta tell you something. I feel like you forgot about me. I gotta tell you something, God. I really feel like you abandoned me on this, God.
21:53-22:01
I've been praying for this, and I'm not seeing an answer, and I can't make sense of it, God." He can handle it, okay?
22:02-22:05
You're not going to shock, I'm not saying to be irreverent, okay?
22:05-22:06
I'm not saying that at all.
22:08-22:12
Not saying be irreverent, what I am saying is you need to be honest with God about how you feel.
22:14-22:20
Like, "Look God, I'm hurting right now, and I don't know how I'm going to take my next step." Be honest with God.
22:22-22:27
There's great power and there's great peace and there's great comfort in crying out.
22:29-22:39
But I just want to encourage you, when you're at those low points, take it to God, even if you don't feel like it.
22:39-22:44
When you read verses 1 and 2 with me, did it sound like David felt like praying?
22:44-22:46
He felt like he was abandoned.
22:48-22:51
But you see, he didn't let his feelings dictate what he did.
22:52-22:57
He goes, "I might feel like God forgot me, "I might feel like God abandoned me, "but I'm still going after God.
22:58-23:00
"God, consider and answer me." He was still praying.
23:01-23:02
It doesn't matter how I feel.
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What I know is that God is there and he's gonna listen.
23:04-23:07
So that's what I'm going after, and I'm gonna get real with God about that.
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Take it to God.
23:10-23:12
A lot of times, we avoid God.
23:14-23:16
During trials, we avoid God.
23:16-23:17
So who do we take it to?
23:18-23:19
Well, there's really three sources.
23:19-23:21
One is a lot of times we take it to ourselves.
23:22-23:23
We already talked about that.
23:23-23:25
We just keep counseling ourselves.
23:26-23:28
A lot of times we take it to other people.
23:29-23:32
And we just become the Debbie Downer complainer.
23:32-23:38
You sit down with me for two or three hours, let me tell you how miserable my life is.
23:39-23:40
Yeah, that sounds great.
23:40-23:42
I'll put the coffee on.
23:43-23:45
We take it to other people, but we don't take it to God.
23:46-23:47
But we live in a day.
23:48-23:50
We take it to a third source.
23:50-24:00
You take it to social media, which, look, I love social media because I have friends, pastor friends, friends from arresting, I have friends all over the world.
24:00-24:08
It's great to catch up who's having babies, who's getting married, you know, who has babies that are getting married and pictures of their dogs and stuff like that.
24:08-24:09
I love that.
24:10-24:15
I get a little worn out sometimes because some people take to things they should be taking to God.
24:16-24:23
It's like, man, I am having, I'm having a really, really rough time in my life right I have nowhere to turn, oh Twitter.
24:25-24:27
I'll put my complaints on Twitter.
24:27-24:30
Or I just had the worst day of my life.
24:30-24:32
You should be on your face crying out to God about that.
24:32-24:36
Instead it's like, here comes a Facebook status update.
24:37-24:46
Okay, you know, my 500 friends, only 60 of whom I really know, let me tell you how miserable my life is.
24:49-24:52
It can be a great form for a lot of things, but it is not a good form for that.
24:53-24:56
My encouragement to you is take it to God.
24:56-24:57
Take it to God.
24:59-25:00
Look at verse 4.
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He says, "Consider and answer me," and in verse 4 he says, "lest my enemies say, 'I have prevailed over him,' lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken." "Lest my enemies say, 'That's sold in the wound.
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That's being kicked when you're down.
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That's adding insult to injury when you're already down and out and your enemy comes by to rejoice over it.'" It's rough.
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But the second part of verse four, notice he says, "Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken." Like, what does that mean?
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Like, my enemies are looking at me and I'm just like shaking.
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And my enemies are rejoicing because I'm shaking.
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Like, that's not what that means.
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What he's talking about is his faith.
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Some translations say, "Let my enemies see me move." He's talking about, "My faith is shaken." The world loves nothing more than to see a Christian fail.
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The world loves nothing more than to see a Christian fall on his face.
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And I don't mean in prayer. I mean have an epic failure.
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The world loves that. The world loves it.
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By the way, we saw it last week.
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Actually, maybe it was a couple weeks ago now.
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I don't know how many of you followed this story with the Duggar family.
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You know the Duggar family?
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How many people know the Duggar family? It's on TV.
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They have this show, what's it, like 130 kids and counting or something?
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19. Oh, okay.
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Once you have more than five kids, others count.
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You can have six or you can have, you know, a thousand.
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count after five but I'm not going into the details about the crime the crimes that were committed but here's what I do want to point out why did that story get so much attention the reason that story got so much attention is because the family especially the parents are so bold about their faith on their television program And many people, even before these crimes came out that happened, many people hated this family just because of that.
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Just because they get on TV and they're like, "We're Christians.
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We love our church and we support our church." The world hated them already.
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But then when we see this horrible failure that took place, the world's rejoicing over that.
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I'm not going to tell you, when the news broke, you know how I found out about it?
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I don't follow it.
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My wife loves those TLC shows.
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To me, they're all the same.
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You know, 19 Kids, The Little People, whatever, my 900-pound life, whatever, it's all the same stuff.
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They're all trying to convince you that their life's just like mine.
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Okay, great, then I don't need to watch it.
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Okay?
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I'll just go live mine.
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But my parents are not here today, so I can say this.
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He just loves these shows.
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And I don't really care about them either way.
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But how I found out about this whole Duggar thing was a friend of mine who doesn't love the Lord texted me.
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He's like, "Did you hear about the Duggars?" He said, "I knew those families.
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I knew that family was a bunch of freaks.
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I knew..." And he just was like...
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And I texted him back.
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I said, "Why do you hate them so much?" I mean, he was so rejoicing.
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Like, "See?
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I'm not going to be a Duggar.
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And I said, "Well, I'm not going See see I knew there was something wrong with those people and look at them. I'm just like Like why are we why are we so excited about this?
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They're hated just because of their faith just like those duck call people that I don't watch either But here's the point to the world God's reputation is connected to his people's reputation to the world And that's not my opinion, that's actually in the Bible.
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Write this reference down, you can look this up later.
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Deuteronomy 32, 27.
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The Lord speaks of this in Deuteronomy 32, 27, that to the world, God's reputation is connected to his people's reputation.
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Do you understand what that means?
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That means when the guy stands up and says, "I love the Lord, I love the Lord," and then and he fails miserably, the world's like, "Mm-hmm, he trusted God, look at him now." All big Christian, big Christian, look at him now.
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He trusted God, and what did he get out of it?
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Nothing.
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He's a failure.
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The stupid religion and, you know, idiot.
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And look at him now.
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Look at him now, where's your Jesus at now?
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The world loves to see Christians fall.
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This is God's epic word.
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So we need to move from God is good to God is good.
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Got this reference down.
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This is a Bible verse that you must have memorized.
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If you don't, I encourage you to get on it this week.
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There's a glorious promise in Hebrews 4.16.
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It says, "Let us then with confidence draw near "to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
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That is a beautiful verse.
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That is a beautiful verse.
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What that's saying is we can get real with God, we can go before God first of all, he says confidently, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.
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You can go to God confidently.
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You don't need to go to God with your tail between your legs.
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Like, oh, I blew it.
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I'm so sorry, God, I blew it.
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Confidently doesn't mean arrogantly, it just means like, look, God, You know me and you know my weaknesses.
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And I got to tell you, I blew it.
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I got to tell you, I'm going through this trial right now.
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Whatever it is right now, it's burdening your heart.
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You can go confidently.
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You can go directly.
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You don't need to go to me or some priest or whatever.
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You can go to God directly to his throne and you can go needy.
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to find help in time of need.
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God wants you to come to him needy.
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And here's the great thing.
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God's never going to turn you away.
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And according to this glorious promise in Hebrews 2 verse 16, there's only two things on the menu that God's going to serve off.
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And that's mercy and grace.
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That is so important.
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Because people think if I go to God, I'm going to get condemnation.
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No, there is now therefore no condemnation to those who have Christ Jesus.
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If I go to God, he's really gonna, he's really going to rebuke me hard, no.
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What did he promise that you would get when you have need?
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What did he promise you?
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He promised that you would get mercy and grace in your time of need.
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So that's why when the trials come, and you're saying, how long, how long, how long?
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You know what?
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God said I can go right to his throne and get mercy and grace.
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And finally, how do we get from moving to God is good to God is good?
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Look at the big picture.
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Look at verses 5 and 6 with me again.
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He says, "But I have trusted in your steadfast love.
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My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
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I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me." So the question here is what's the turnaround?
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What's the turnaround?
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I was studying this a lot this week.
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You know something I don't see in the text?
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I don't see an answer to his prayer.
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Do you?
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Do you see that in there?
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Do you see an answer to his prayer?
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Do you see some type of resolution to his problem?
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I don't see that.
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So what happened between verse four and verse five?
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He went from despair and defeat and despondency to He's worshipping.
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What's the turnaround?
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See, that's the thing that I find most about this passage, is this glorious truth.
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You need to write this down.
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Your circumstance doesn't need to change for your emotions to change.
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Write that down, because that's what we see here in the text.
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circumstances don't need to change for your emotions to change.
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Well, I'll be happy once this problem goes away.
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Your circumstances don't need to change for your emotions to change.
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Like, well, okay, granted, I see what you're saying in the text.
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There's a dramatic shift.
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But I have a question.
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What brought the change in David?
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What made the change?
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Well, the answer is right in the text.
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We're going to do a test here.
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I already told you I'm a little bit of a grammar Nazi, so now it's your turn to test your grammar skills.
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I'm going to read a clause, and you're going to tell me if it refers to the past, the present, or the future.
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Okay? Past, present, or future. Multiple choice.
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You have a 33 and a third percent chance.
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Okay?
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But I have trusted in your steadfast love, past, present, or future.
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Past.
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Past.
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Very good.
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Number two.
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My heart shall rejoice, past, present, or future.
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Future.
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Right.
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I will sing to the Lord, past, present, or future.
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Oh, that was the meatball.
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Future.
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Finally, because he has dealt bountifully with me, past president of Future, past.
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Very good, fellow grammar Nazis.
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So, do you see it?
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He wasn't focusing on the here and now.
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this moment of despair What changed his emotions was looking at the past in the future both?
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Did you see that Because our biggest danger when we're in depression over some type of trial Our biggest temptation our biggest tendency is to get stuck in the moment My life is so miserable Why is my life so hard you're just looking at today dude, you're just looking at today What you need to do like David here, this is what changed his emotions he looked at the panorama of his life and There are two conclusions that he came up with that are also true of you I promise you it's true of every single person in this room. It's these two glorious truths The first one is this things haven't always been like this Things haven't always been like this. I can't say God doesn't care God's not involved in my life Can I can I look back at my hip than my past history and see an absent God?
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Absolutely not. I like David can say God has dealt battlefield with me. Has God ever done anything good in your life?
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Has God ever done anything good in your life?
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Jared, has God ever done anything good in your life?
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Yeah?
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Rachel, how about you?
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Emily?
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We can just go on down the line.
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Has God ever done anything good in your life?
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Absolutely.
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Everyone in this room can say that.
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So like David, we can say things haven't always been like this.
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So I can rejoice over everything that God has done.
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Here's the second glorious truth, and that is this.
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Things won't be like this forever.
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Things will not be like this forever.
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might feel like it. But things will not be like this forever.
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You realize in eternity, when you're in heaven, and you think back to your life on earth, do you know how long that's going to seem to you? Your life on earth, do you know what that's going to seem like to you? That's going to seem like a second compared to eternity.
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You're going to look back at this time, like I was only on the earth, but a heartbeat.
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Things aren't going to be like this forever.
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We can say, "God has been good to me," and we can say, "My best days are ahead of me." So in the meantime, what are we going to do?
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Well, just what it says here, "I will sing to the Lord." You see, the problem with this, the emotional problem with David here, and the emotional problem we get into. Our emotions are down and singing is how we worship God with our emotions. So ultimately we can make a choice. We can choose to keep singing the blues to myself or we can sing praises to the Lord to lift our spirits. So looking at verses 5 and 6 again, have you trusted in God's fast love? Well, if you have, your heart should rejoice at what is to come. Has God dealt bountifully with you? And I would say, let's say, praising God ahead of time for what's coming. Let's pray. And then we'll say, Father in heaven, we do get to know you. We stuck in the moment.
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We're like David more times than we care we've been.
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But I pray that we would take a page out of David's book here and come to you with our trials.
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Come to you with whatever is burdening us.
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Stop preaching to ourselves.
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Stop complaining to others.
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But to come to you, God I pray that you would help us to look at the big picture.
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Like David, every single person in this room can say, "God has been good to me." For those in this room who are born again believers in Jesus Christ, we know that their best days are ahead of them.
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You have prepared a place in glory where we will forever be separated from the presence of sin and death and destruction and hurts and disappointment and discouragement.
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All of those things are going to be things of the past.
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Our best days are certainly ahead of us.
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And when we're going through trials like today, give us eyes of faith to look at what's ahead.
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remove us from questioning Your goodness and joyfully singing about Your goodness.
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And we will praise You in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Psalm 13
David mentions his "enemy" in verses 2 and 4. How would you apply what he says to your own life?
Why is David's focus on the past and the future in verses 5 and 6? What does this tell you about how you should view your life during a trial?
CHILDREN'S QUESTION Have you ever felt like God is ignoring you? What should we do when we feel that way? (Explain to your child that God IS there, and He DOES care, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes when we are sad, we feel alone and that God has left us - but He promised to NEVER leave us!)
Breakout Questions:
Did you abide through prayer and Bible reading this week? What specifically are you moved to change or apply this week and how are you going to apply it?
Pray for one another.