Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 13 | Date: February 12, 2023 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

All right, we continue our studies on the Psalms, trying to learn how to read and understand the Psalms. We’ll get to Psalm 13 and some other samples as well tonight, but you can open to Psalm 13. Let’s bow for prayer.

Our Father, we’re grateful, as Pastor Boyd has said, for this wonderful hymn book that you have given to us in your word. We pray that you will help us, as we already cherish it so much, to learn to read it better and to take more from it that you have there for us. Lamenting is such an integral part of life in this world. And we pray that we will lament as faithful Christians in a way that honors you, a way that deepens faith. We pray that you’ll help us to learn from the psalmist to do that. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Psalm 13 is a Psalm of David.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

All right, just by way of review quickly, we began last time just introducing the genre of the lament psalms. These are psalms that lament. More properly, we call them lament petition psalms because at the heart of every lament psalm is a petition asking God for his help. There are various kinds of lament psalms. There’s the general lament. There’s the lament that protests and complains. There’s even the kind that call on God’s judgment on the enemies—so there’s imprecatory lament psalms. There’s penitential lament psalms where the psalmist is lamenting his sin, and then in which case the petition will be petitioning for forgiveness and grace.

But we have at the heart of these psalms this plea for help: “save me, oh God,” “hear me, oh God.” That kind of language is used quite often. And the context of these psalms is that of danger, persecution, suffering, difficulty of some kind, sometimes a military crisis. Very often it’s life-threatening circumstances that the psalmist is facing. And he’s crying out to God for help in the midst of that kind of difficulty or suffering. As I say, some call for the destruction of the enemy, but at the very least it is calling for God to intervene and to bring this to a happy resolution. And I’ve just mentioned briefly last time and gave you several samples of the identifying marks of a lament psalm. I’m going to spend some more time with that this evening, but let’s review them quickly.

The Components Of A Lament Psalm

I have it there in your handout. These are the components of a lament psalm, and you’ll see these regularly. We’ve got something over 70 lament psalms in the Psalter, and regularly you see these elements: a direct address (“Oh God,” “Oh Lord”), and then you have a complaint or a lament, and then you have an expression of confidence. And then you have the petition itself, where the psalmist prays for God to intervene and help. And then you have some kind of conclusion at the end, which can take various forms. We’ll talk about that a little bit more as we go along.

But let’s look again at Psalm 13, which we have just read, and see where these elements are. And part of the profit from learning to read lament Psalms will be learning to identify these components. So you see what the psalmist is trying to do.

So first we have the direct address. In this case, it is, “oh Lord.” Sometimes it’s, “oh my God,” or “oh shepherd of Israel” or something. There’s direct address to God. So we have that in verse one: “how long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever?”

Then we have the threefold lament: “How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”

So we’ve got the direct address and now we’ve had the lament. Keep in mind in poetry, it’s not just Hebrew poetry, but English poetry is the same: it’s terse, it’s compact, it’s condensed. And so you have to take your time with this and say, what words here signal something of the context? What’s going on? It’s stated very briefly, but you have to work with that and figure out what’s going on in the psalmist’s situation. But that’s the lament in verses one and two.

And then we come to the heart of it, the second stanza, verses three and four, where we have the petition or the prayer itself: “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. 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.” We’ve had the direct address, the complaint or the lament, and verses three and four, the petitions.

And now verse five, we have an expression of confidence in God: “But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”

And then he concludes with a vow to praise as though the answer has already come. Verse six: “I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

And then, as I’ve told you before, the postscript here, in our versions, is actually put as the superscript of the next psalm: “to the choir master.” These notes that have to do with the performance of the psalm are actually the postscript to the previous psalm. So this psalm is given to the song leader, and the congregation is to sing this as well.

Oh, there’s a nice, I think, crisp example of a lament psalm. You see the basic components that are there: the direct address, the lament, the petitions, the confidence, the vow to praise as the conclusion. And again, learning to read the psalms to discern those elements in the psalm is just tremendously helpful in profiting from them.

The Direct Address

Now let’s take a few minutes and do a closer look at each of these components. I don’t want to be tedious, but I think it’d be helpful for you to learn the various signals for these kinds of components and how they look in the Psalter. So just some broad observations about it.

So first of all, the direct address. This is usually with a cry for help. Sometimes there’s an initial lament with it. “Hear me, oh God,” or what we have here, “How long, oh Lord?” We have the direct address; he turns to God in his extremity, and it’s usually with some kind of initial plea, initial petition, or an initial lament. And common among these are the expressions, “O Lord,” addressing God as “O God,” or “O my God,” or “O shepherd of Israel.”

And almost always this direct address is among the very first words of the psalm. So this is kind of a handy signal for you. When you see that in that first verse, “oh Lord,” “oh my God,” you see it regularly in the psalms. That’s a signal, okay, we’re dealing with a lament psalm. Almost always, almost always. I can’t think of an exception to that right now. There may be one, but almost always at least, these are signals of a lament psalm. And it’s usually abrupt. It starts out abruptly: “Oh God! My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are the signals of a lament psalm.

And as I said, it often includes an initial petition or initial lament of some kind. And sometimes that address to God will also give an initial description of the psalmist’s circumstances. Let me give you a couple of samples. I gave these to you last time. Psalm 3 and verse 1: “Oh Lord, how many are my foes?” Well, there we have, all right, the setting of the psalm. He’s got enemies around him of some kind. Now we still have to figure out what—is that military? Is that some pending coup? That happens in the psalms as well, where David is lamenting that. Sometimes it’s people in his cabinet who are just kind of rubbing their hands, hoping that he’ll die now because he’s so sick. And David is lamenting that. But we’re signaled already in Psalm 3, “O Lord, how many are my foes,” that his lament here has to do with his enemies.

Psalm 4, if you’d like to look at it, verse 1: “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.”

Psalm 5 verses 1 and 2: “Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.”

Psalm 6, another lament psalm: “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.”

Psalm 7 is another lament psalm: “O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge.” Here we have the direct address, but here his words with it are not a petition or a lament, but he’s actually expressing his confidence already in the Psalm. “Oh Lord, in you do I take refuge.” And then the petition: “save me from my pursuers and deliver me.”

Psalm 10 is another lament: “Why, O Lord,”—notice the direct address in all of these—”O Lord, why, O Lord, do you stand far away?”

Psalm 13 is another: “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?”

Psalm 22, the famous one that Jesus quotes on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Or the one I alluded to earlier, Psalm 80 in verse one: “give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.” When you see that initial address to God, vocative, calling on God, it signals now we’re dealing with a lament Psalm.

The Lament Or Complaint

All right, now typically after the direct address, you’re going to find a lament, the lament itself or the complaint. Now keep in mind that these components that I’ve mentioned are not absolutely in the same order all the time. They can be jumbled around. It can be the confidence that’s stated first and then lament or something like that. But these are the components that you’ll find. Typically, next, the lament is what’s given. And here the psalmist will describe his lamentable situation and circumstances.

And the common elements of the lament are several. First of all, obviously the idea of suffering is prominent with the psalmist. And so you often hear expressions like “how long, oh Lord, how long will I have to deal with this?” So if you want to go back through some that we’ve read, look at Psalm 4, verse 2: “Oh man, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” All right, so here he’s lamenting the opposition of those around him. They’re turning his honor into shame. We’ll look at Psalm 4 in some detail coming up soon on Sunday mornings. “How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” So he’s got some treachery going on, or at least some potential treachery going on around him, and he’s lamenting that.

Psalm 13, which we’ve read. I’d like to look at that again. Verses one and two: “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Here is some kind of opposition, and it’s been going on for a long time. “How long, O Lord?” We learned something of the situation. So in the lamenting section, he will describe something. Now, remember it’s poetry. It’ll be described briefly and crisply and tersely, but you’ll see in there something of a signal of the circumstances that he’s in.

Sometimes you’ll hear the word “why” in this section, in the laments. Not just an expression of the suffering and description of the circumstances, but why? Why, oh Lord? So Psalm 10, verse one—by the way, the Psalms are not chapters properly, they are Psalms. Psalm 10, Psalm 11. You wouldn’t say, turn in your hymnal to chapter 401. It’s song number 401, same with the Psalter. So if I say chapter, like I just did, that’s a mistake. Psalm 10 verse 1: “why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Or Psalm 22: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Often the address “why” is given to God. Sometimes in some of the Psalms it’s addressed rhetorically to the enemy: “Why do you oppose me like you do?” But often it’s to God. “Why do you stand far away? Why do you forget me? Why do you hide your face from me?”

So he’s suffering. And part of the suffering is not just the opposition that he’s receiving from others on the outside or the sickness that he’s enduring or whatever it is. Part of the suffering is God seems far away. He seems distant. He’s not answering my plea. He doesn’t seem to want to help. “Why, oh Lord, have you forgotten me?” That’s regularly part of the laments.

And with that, then, with that “why,” is another element of the lament: and that is the complaint that God is absent. If you’d like some samples there: Psalm 10 verse one, Psalm 22, Psalm 74 verse 10: “How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?” God seems to be distant. He doesn’t seem to want to help. He doesn’t seem to be concerned. And that adds to the affliction of the psalmist.

Another component of the lament section is that he’ll express not only his suffering and not only the complaint that God doesn’t seem to care and he seems to be distant, but also the added element in many of them that the enemy seems too strong. “I’m suffering. I’m helpless. And besides that, the enemy is overwhelming.” “How many are my foes?” You’ll find expressions like that, like Psalm 3: “Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God.” So not only is there suffering, and God stands far away, but there’s nothing I can do about it. This enemy is just too powerful and too numerous for me to do anything in return. I’m in a spot that I can’t do anything about. And you’ll find that note of desperation often in the laments.

If you’d like, turn briefly to Psalm 69. You’ll see all three of these elements in one Psalm. Psalm 69, beginning of verse two, we have his personal suffering: “I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.” And then God is absent: “I’m weary with my crying out”—that is to God—”my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” And then the enemy’s too powerful: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without a cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies.” So that gives you a sense of what to look for in the lament section of the lament psalm.

An Expression Of Confidence

So you have the direct address to God, then you have the lament itself. And then third, you typically will have some expression of confidence on the part of the psalmist. Here he asserts his confidence in God. He’s lamenting, he feels in desperation, but despite the extremity of the situation, he’s going to say, “I still trust in God.” And that’s the essence of the confidence sections. Often with that, he’ll express his reason for trusting God still. God seems distant. He seems to have forgotten, seems not to care, but I trust in him and I trust in his steadfast love.

And often the section here will deal with God’s attributes: his trustworthiness, his faithfulness, his loving kindness, his steadfast love, his powerful rule, his sovereign rule over all. Sometimes it’ll appeal to his past actions. God has always helped us in the past. God has a history of helping Israel from the beginning. He brought us out of Egypt. He’s brought us into the promised land. He’s helped us defeat our enemies, and he’ll appeal to past actions. And never is it simply a history lesson. It’s an appeal to God’s history to say that he will surely help us again. They’ll appeal to God’s covenant relationship with Israel, things like that, but he’ll reason with himself and with God here why he still trusts in God.

So this is often, and we’ll see this in just a second, this is often the rationale for the petition that he’ll give. Why will God help me? Why should he help me? Well, that’s often expressed in the confidence section. Well, it’s because he’s a God of steadfast love. He’s a trustworthy God. He’s a God who’s always helped and he’s committed his love to us. And you see that kind of reasoning going on in the psalmist’s mind. So it appeals to God as his refuge. God is my help. God is my hope. God is my deliverer. That’s the kind of thing that you see in these confidence sections, pointing out the attributes of God: his justice, his love, his faithfulness, his mercy, his covenant relation, things like that.

And often in this confidence section, it will be marked off by a little signal. He laments the situation. “He seems far from me. The enemy’s too powerful. I’m suffering an extreme situation. But you!” And you’ll see that little signal: “But you, O Lord.” And then he’ll talk about his steadfast love, his faithfulness. That’s kind of a signal you can watch for. It’s not there all the time by any means, but it is often there. “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me.” “But you, O Lord, are my shield.” “But you, O Lord, are merciful and gracious.” That kind of expression that you’ll see in this part of the Psalms.

The Petition

All right, so Lament Psalms: we have the direct address, we have the lament, we’ll have an expression of confidence, and then next, typically, we’ll have the petition. And here in the petition, this is the heart of the psalm, actually, because here he’s seeking to move God to intervene for him and to help and to bring deliverance. And so you’ll hear notions like, “hear me,” “answer me,” “Do not forget me,” “be favorable,” or “punish the enemy.” Intervene in my behalf. And various kinds of expressions are used, but the idea here is to get, to move God to work on his behalf. As I say, this is the heart of the lament Psalms, a plea for deliverance of some kind.

Now, often you’ll see this petition joined up with the initial direct address to God at the opening of the Psalm. So look again, for example, at Psalm 4, verse 1: “answer me when I call, O God.” Well, there’s a petition. That’s the plea. “Answer me when I call, O God.” Now he developed that later, but that’s often tied with the initial direct address. Or Psalm 7: “Oh Lord, my God,”—there’s your direct address—”In you do I take refuge.” There’s your expression of confidence. And then the petition already: “save me from all my pursuers and deliver me.”

Psalm 17, give you another example: “Hear a just cause, oh Lord, attend to my cry.” There’s the petition already in the direct address at the beginning. But notice here, by the way, he says here—this is Psalm 17 verse one—”hear a just cause.” Oh God, I have more to say about that in a minute, that he’s calling on God to help because it’s right to do so.

Psalm 94 verse 2 is another example: “Rise up, O judge of the earth.” That’s military language. “Rise up and go to fight for me. Go to battle on my behalf. Rise up, O judge of the earth. Repay to the proud what they deserve.”

So in all of these kinds of examples, this part of the lament, he’s petitioning God, he’s making his plea. This is the heart of the psalm. And what he’s asking for is divine intervention. “Take up my cause for me,” “deliver me,” “act on my behalf,” “take care of the enemy.” Sometimes it’s got harsh words with it, but “bring justice to this situation.” And often in this section, he’ll offer, as I mentioned earlier, a rationale for it. And again, it’s going to be God’s attributes: his justice, his righteousness, his kindness, his covenant promises, his steadfast love, his grace, that kind of thing.

I’m going to take just a moment here and point out something that I think often seems a bit odd to us as we read the Psalms, and that is the rationale that the psalmist will offer sometimes when he asks God to intervene. The rationale is the psalmist’s own innocence. You ever read through the Psalms and been a little puzzled? “How can I pray like this? I’m the good guy here, God.” So let’s take a minute and talk about that. Let’s look at Psalm 26.

Psalm 26. The structure of the Psalm—the components mostly are there, but not all of them. And the structure is a little different, but you can see this is a lament Psalm right away with the direct address and the plea for help. Psalm 26:

Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity.

Notice his reasoning. “Vindicate me, O Lord, for”—that is because—”I have walked in my integrity and I have trusted the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me. Test my heart and my mind, for your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. Do not sweep my soul away with sinners nor my life with bloodthirsty men in whose hands are evil devices and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity. Redeem me and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground in the great assembly. I will bless the Lord.

Now here we have in the first verse, the direct address, like we’ve learned to see in all of them. Verse 1b, beginning with, “for I have walked in my integrity,” all the way through verse 8, we have this expression of confidence. And here he gives the rationale for God to help, and that is his own innocence. “I’m not one of them. I’m one of yours. I wash my hands in innocence. You can prove me and test me yourself and see that I have been faithful.” In verse one and in verse nine, we have the petition. Verse one: “vindicate me.” Verse nine: “do not sweep my soul away with sinners nor my life with bloodthirsty men.” Don’t let me die the death they should die. Now this Psalm lacks a formal lament section, but you can kind of see it throughout.

But Paul’s rationale here asking God to help is grounded in his own innocence. “Vindicate me for I have walked in my integrity and I have trusted.” Now this is not—and we have to make the distinction—this is not a self-righteous Pharisee. And we know that Paul is not being self-righteous in this because later in the Psalm, for example, in verse 11, he’s asking for grace and he knows he’s asking for grace. “Be gracious to me.” What he wants after all is undeserved kindness. But he is praying for God’s justice in this situation. And to do that, to ask for God’s justice in this situation and to intervene on your behalf, your conscience has to be clear.

For example, in Psalm 66 and verse 18, David writes, “if I cherish iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” To ask God to help because you’re one of the good guys, your conscience has to be clear. And so David will regularly, regularly pray, “prove me, test me.” There’s that section in Psalm 139 where he, after admiring the attributes of God and extolling them—you remember he has that little section late in Psalm 139 where he talks about the enemies and “I hate them with a perfect hatred” and “they’re wicked.” And then suddenly it’s, “search me, oh God, know my heart, test me and know my thoughts.” In other words, “I’m not one of them. I’m not like that.” And he’s not claiming absolute perfection by any means. But he has sided with God and he wants God to affirm that. And he’s confident that if God does the inspection, that will be the conclusion.

So he’s convinced of his innocence with regard to the present distress. With regard to this persecution, with regard to these enemies that are coming after him or whatever, he’s convinced that this is not due to something that he has done. Now there are exceptions to that. There are times when he knows it’s because of something he has done. We find that in Psalm 51, we find that in other Psalms as well, where he recognizes his sin and that he doesn’t deserve God’s favor. But in these psalms, with regard to this present situation, “I don’t deserve this. I have been faithful.”

There’s even one of the psalms where the psalmist is lamenting a defeat in battle. And they just can’t grapple with it. Paul cites it in Romans chapter eight: “For your sake, we’re counted like sheep and we’re slaughtered all the day long.” We’ve been faithful and precisely because we’ve been faithful now, we’ve been defeated in army, in military settings. And so they lament that and what they want is justice to be done.

So in all of that, David’s confidence rests in God and it rests in God alone. And we’ll see that in Psalm 13. And so you see that in the confidence sections as well, but as a divinely appointed King to whom God has made some certain significant promises: “You’ll be the king. Your son will reign on the throne forever. Your son will be the great messianic king who will rule over the world.” David got that. So he knows his kingdom has to prosper. And he’s puzzled when it doesn’t. And when he’s being faithful and he’s trying to follow the Lord, and yet defeat comes or the enemy comes or sickness comes and it’s about to be death, he’s puzzled. How can God keep his promise? And with all of this happening, how can I be put to death like we see in Psalm 13? And yet God made these wonderful promises to me. So ultimately his trust is in God and in God’s justice and his covenant love. But he can do it often on the additional ground that he has kept the covenantal obligations that he has, and he has been faithful. And so it makes the suffering all the more poignant, all the more severe. “I thought God would bless me for this. And he doesn’t. And here he seems to have forsaken me.” Well, that’s the confidence section of the Lament Psalms.

The Conclusion

Then finally, the last verse, or the last couple of verses usually, we have the conclusion. The conclusion of the Lament Psalms takes one of several different forms. Usually the conclusion section is a praise or a vow to praise. At the end of the Psalm, he’ll just burst forth and praise as though the deliverance has already come. So, verse six of Psalm 13, where we began: here we have a vow to praise. “I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me,” as though the deliverance has already come. So often it’s just a burst out in praise at the end, assuming the deliverance has already come. “When this deliverance comes, I will sing to the congregation,” “I will praise,” or some expression like that. So it’s a praise or a vow to praise. Usually that’s what it is.

If you’d like an example of that, a good conclusion, Psalm 54, if you’d like to look at that. Verses six and seven. Notice here we have a vow to praise: “With a freewill offering, I will sacrifice to you. I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.”

So usually in the conclusion, you’ll have a praise—he just bursts out with praise—or a vow to praise that when the deliverance comes, “I will praise God.” And usually it’s among the congregation or something like that. Now there are some other things that may happen in the conclusion, instead of a praise or instead of a vow to praise, or in addition to these, you might have another final expression of lament. You might have an expression of wish that’s prominent in these as well, an expression of hope that he will proclaim God’s deliverance to the world or to the congregation. And sometimes in this concluding section, there’ll be a reaffirmation of his confidence in God based on his steadfast love or something like that.

Psalm 6, let’s look at that one. Psalm 6 for another example of a conclusion. Psalm 6 verses 9 and 10: “The Lord has heard my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled. They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.” Now we know from verse 10 that the deliverance has not come yet, but in verse 9, he’s confident that God has heard him. Somehow in his prayer, God has given assurance. Or counting on God’s trustworthiness, his faithfulness, his covenant love, David now expresses a robust faith that “God has heard me. He’ll accept my plea. He hears me and my enemies will be destroyed.”

Psalm 13 verses five and six, another conclusion to a lament Psalm: “but I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

Now, these are the standard components of a lament psalm. It’s been tremendously helpful to me to learn to recognize these in reading the psalms. I hope you find it the same, but these are the elements. You have an address to God in prayer. He states his need, he laments, complains sometimes. He makes his request, his petition. He reasons with God about his request. That’s his confidence section where he speaks of God’s attributes, God’s past help and things like that. And then he concludes with a vow to praise.

Now there are variations and sometimes in the Psalms, they’re harder to recognize than in others, but these are the standard components. In fact, there are exceptions to it. Psalm 63 is interesting in that it has the form of a lament Psalm, but there’s no petition. Psalm 88 is another interesting Psalm. It’s often called the black sheep of the Psalter because there’s no explicit element of praise in it, which is interesting because one of the things we learn from the lament Psalms is that lamenting to God is inappropriate apart from praise. But you have Psalm 88; we’ll get to that at some point where there’s no explicit element of praise in the Psalm. I think it is implicit though.

All right, so those are the standard forms. Already you can say, “learning to lament faithfully, here’s how I can do it: go to God, state my need, make my request, reason it out, give your reasons for it, and vow to praise.” Express your confidence in God and remain faithful in praise. We have something here of a model for praying.

Now I wanted to give a brief exposition of Psalm 13 given the holiday. I don’t think I can get through that this evening, but I do want you to think of one other thing quickly. And that is in Psalm—this idea of lament Psalms—there’s something in the New Testament. There’s a verse in the New Testament you’re all familiar with that echoes this. Before I give it to you, I just want you to think about it. Where do we find it in the New Testament? I’ll give you another hint, it’s Paul, where we find Paul giving instruction on prayer that echoes the structure of these Lament Psalms. As soon as I say it, you’re gonna say, oh yeah, of course.

Philippians 4. Philippians 4, verse 6. A verse you’re all familiar with. I’ll give you a minute to get there. Philippians 4 and verse 6: “Do not be anxious about anything.” There’s your lamentable situation. “But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.” There’s all the elements of a petition, a lament petition psalm. And so Paul, presumably learning from David, tells you when you’re in your difficult circumstances, you’re suffering, here’s how to pray: don’t worry, don’t fret, but take it to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving and let your requests be made known unto God.

I think it’s an important part of Christian living to learn how to bring our laments to God. We might think—and we’ll deal with this more next week—we might think that it’s slightly unfaithful, unholy to complain, lament to God. Shouldn’t we just trust his providence? And we learned from the Psalms that there is a faithful way to lament. And I think learning this structure is a long—takes us a long way to helping with that.

All right, I think next week we’ll look at Psalm 13. We’ll finally get to that. But then I also want to draw some other observations from the Lament Psalm before we go on. All right, I think that’s all. Let’s be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please?