Cole Penick | Psalm 44 | Lamentation for the Afflicted

The moon is always round. Now, for most of us, that feels like an unnecessary statement of fact. But there was a time in your life when you had to be convinced that the moon is always round. The fact that the moon is always round actually isn't native to our way of viewing the cosmos. From our perspective looking up into the heavens, it could be easy to think that the moon is not always round. In fact, for much of the month it is anything but round. It slowly wanes until it disappears and then it gradually waxes until it's full again. And that is assuming we can even see it, right, that the clouds have an obscured or that it's not in the night sky when we go to look for it. So, what gives you confidence right here, right now, that the moon is always round? You haven't been there. Your eyes tell you something different every night. And yet I am confident that you are confident that the moon is always round. Now, what about the statement, "God is always good"? Is that as bedrock of a fact, as the unfailing shape of the moon? Or do our circumstances or feelings or perspectives dictate that? Do they alter that fact? Well, our passage this morning is written by someone who not only believed that God is always good, but he gave us this psalm so that we would have words to groan in faith on dark and moonless nights of the soul. Turn with me in your copies of God's Word to Psalm 44. And if you'd like to use the Bibles we've provided in the seat back in front of you, you can find our passage on page 470. Now, last week we considered Psalm 42, excuse me, 43. And when taken together, 42 and 43, they repeatedly ask, "Why so downcast, oh my soul, put your hope in God." And this week we're going to continue through that journey of suffering in faith, but the perspective is going to shift. The lament is no longer merely personal. It becomes communal. The cry changes from eye to we in our passage. And as you read along and listen, pay attention to the vivid imagery and the raw emotions and the sharp contrasts throughout this psalm. Because like other laments in Scripture, Psalm 44 was given by the Holy Spirit to God's people to not only speak to us, but also to give us words to speak back to God. So listen now, as God's Word gives voice to both deep affliction and enduring faith. To the choir master, a mask of the sons of Korah. Oh God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, "What deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old. You with your own hand drove out the nations, but them you planted. You afflicted the peoples, but them you set free." For not by their own sword did they win the land. Nor did their own arm save them. But your right hand and your arm and the light of your face for you delighted in them. You are my king, oh God, ordained salvation for Jacob. Through you we push down our foes, through your name we tread down those who rise up against us. For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me. But you have saved us from our foes, and have put to shame those who hate us. In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever. Say la. But you have rejected us and disgraced us and not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoiled. You have made us like sheep for slaughter, and have scattered us among the nations. You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them. You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the division and scorn of those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughing stock among the peoples. All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face, at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger. All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way. Yet you have broken us in the place of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a foreign God, would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust? Our belly clings to the ground, rise up, come to our help, redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love. What a wady and honest psalm for us to consider this morning. May we by God's grace be sobered and encouraged by the truth that conveys. If you are looking for a main idea, I think this psalm wants us to depend on God's loving power to save, from sweet victory to the bitter end. Depend on God's loving power to save, from sweet victory to the bitter end. If you are looking for a tearless sermon, you will not find it here. But what I want us to do is to move through our passage this morning in four movements. Part 1, we are going to look at verses 1-8. The truth that shapes us. And then we will move with the passage in verses 9-16. And there we will see the trial that shakes us. And then we will move to verses 17-22. And there we will discover the trust that slays us. And finally we will consider verses 23-26. They will find the cry to the one who saves us. So looking at verses 1-8, here we find the truth that shapes us. It is as if before sitting down to pin Psalm 44, the author had done his morning quiet time in Deuteronomy 6-9. And in Deuteronomy 6-9 Moses is preparing Israel to enter the Promised Land. And he commands them to remember and to recount the mighty deeds of the Lord. And then he reminds them that every victory ahead would come not by their strength, but by God's power and for God's glory. And those were promises made and promises kept. And now, generations later, as God's people face new trials, they need those same truths to shape them. They need to remember that it has always been and will always be the mighty hand of God that saves. The Promised Land wasn't won by Israel's strength, but by God. God's strength. The Israelites didn't receive vineyards they didn't plant and houses they didn't build because they deserved them, but because God is gracious to give good gifts to his people. Jericho didn't fall because Joshua was a clever general and Midian wasn't defeated because Gideon had brilliant tactics. No. It was the God of heavenly armies who uprooted the nations and planted his people. Samson couldn't knock over a domino without the arm of the Lord. Rahab, well she wasn't grafted in. And Ruth, she didn't find her Kimsman Redeemer because they were righteous in and of themselves. No, they were brought in because God is righteous because God delighted in them. Israel was never saved from giants or tyrants because they were lovable, but because God had chosen to set his steadfast love on them. The Lord God was their king. He ordained salvation for his people. And these aren't mere stories that we use to entertain children. These are the mighty deeds of God. Handed down from one generation to the next. They are timeless signposts reminding the faithful of the character and strength of the one who saves. And they shape us today as we consider our lives, the highs, and the lows. And watch what the psalmist does in verse four. He switches from recounting God's faithfulness and past generations to recounting God's faithfulness in his generation. He turns the lens of faith that's been handed down by his fathers onto his own lived experience. And he boldly recognizes that the same God who struck down the Egyptians and the Canaanites is still delivering his people. Look at what he does. He says in verse three, it wasn't their sword. And then he says in verse six, and it hasn't been my sword. And what we're seeing is that the transfer of these stories has had its intended effect. The psalmist now says with confidence, the God who saved them is the God who saves me. And so when you consider your life and the victories that you've seen, maybe in your career with your family, maybe it's your academic record or some other achievement, you should hold them with open hands and recognize that it's God who has made all those things possible. And even more importantly, if you are in Christ, when you see the fruit of the spirit that the Lord has brought about in your life, fruit that's in keeping with repentance, fruit that can only come from a new heart, you have to recognize that it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. I'm not standing in this pulpit again today because of my strength or my resolve or my willpower or my effort. But only by the grace of God do we in any way believe and repent and endure and wait on him and bear fruit and walk faithfully. And so like Paul, we boast in our weakness because we are joining with the psalmist in verse 8 in boasting in God continually. We resolve in faith to give thanks to his name forever. I'll be honest, I found in my own life that there is no greater antid for my pride and self-righteousness than regular heartfelt thanksgiving. It plants the flag of God deep into my heart and it declares, you are my king, oh God, I have no good apart from you. So take every opportunity to remember the matchless character and salvation of our God. Fill your minds with reminders of who God is and what he has done. And it's okay to start small. Read his word, meditate on it throughout the day and the night. And then challenge yourself to study deep and hard things of God. And then take every opportunity to remind others of the matchless character and salvation of God. Fill your conversations with reminders of who God is and what he has done. Ask God to give you the motivation and the opportunity to bring up his character in normal conversations at school or at work. And if this feels intimidating or you don't feel prepared to do that, then we as a church would love to come alongside you in that. Michael Gaddy would love for you to ride shotgun with him once a month as he tells the preschool Bible story to kids down the hall during this time. Or maybe you need to find Bennett Cox and see how you can join with him as he jumps into this new role to help on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings. Learn to recount the mighty deeds of God to yourself and to others so that the next generation can one day say, the God who saved them is the God who saves me. Because we need these truths to shape us. And the next generation will need these truths to shape them because there are trials coming and have already come. And unless these truths shape us, those trials will shake us to the core. Because let's look at what happens starting in verse 9. If you look in your Bible, you can see there's a sharp contrast between verses 1 to 8 and verses 9 to 16. So after this salah, which is pregnant with high hopes and enduring faith, verse 9 plunges us into the darkness of affliction. What was favor and victory at the hand of the Lord is now defeat and disgrace at the hand of the Lord. And notice, the psalmist is still speaking directly to the Lord. The English translators make sure we don't miss this by beginning nearly every line with God's sovereign role. You, you, you, you. Like Eliza Hamilton, burning letters from Alexander, it's very clear who's responsible for the pain and hurt. And at first glance, this feels out of bounds. I mean, can we really talk to God this way? And the answer is a merciful and gracious yes. God has put these words in our Bibles for our benefit. This is one of those places that Jeremy talked about last week. Where scripture not only speaks to us, but also speaks for us. I mean, what a mercy that is. That we can approach the throne of the sovereign of the universe with Holy Spirit-inspired language to express what are ultimately groaning's too deep for words. And so while we sit here between the sin of Adam and the second coming of Christ, we join with all of creation in eager longing for the end of suffering. Because we're either currently suffering or we're about to be suffering or we're graciously exiting a period of suffering. But in any of those phases, what we have here is a gift from God, a lament of scripture that serves as a lamp and to our feet and a light and to our path as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And this is where, in this section, that we really noticed the shift I mentioned earlier. From the singular focus of Psalms 42 and 43, remember, why so downcast O my soul? To this language of communal suffering? You have rejected us and disgraced us. You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten the spoil. You have made us like sheep for the slaughter, and have scattered us among the nations. What we need to know is that faith-filled suffering recognizes three things. First, that suffering comes from God's sovereign hand. It comes from God's sovereign hand. And second, it's still not the way the world was meant to be. And finally, we don't suffer alone. We don't suffer alone. We have fellow sufferers alongside us. And what's important to recognize in Psalm 44 is that while other places in Scripture are going to remind us that we have others alongside us as a mean to lift our spirits to lessen our burdens, actually, the recognition in Psalm 44 is meant to deepen our sorrows, to add weight to our burdens. We don't want that. We don't like that at all. Modern American Christianity tends to individualize suffering. And Psalm 44 won't let us do that. You see, our awareness of suffering shifts from me at the center in Psalm 44 to God at the center. And with God at the center, all of creation is setting our eyes on Him as our only hope in the midst of turmoil. Brothers and sisters, I'll be honest. My own sufferings are more than I can handle. And yet, in lifting my eyes to those around me in this body, I see that mine aren't the only afflictions. You too are hurting and grieving, maybe in ways that are similar, maybe in ways that are worse, maybe in ways that are just different. And then, we remember our brothers and sisters in some of the most oppressive corners of the planet. And we reflect on their affliction, the kinds of persecution and violence that sound like what Samantha read earlier from Hebrews 11, the ones of whom the world is not worthy. And we weep as we consider what this Psalm would sound like in the middle of their prayers. What does this sound like in Korean, or in Nigeria, or in Yemen? And while their hardships don't negate what we're experiencing, it does give needed perspective. It shifts our lament importantly. It shifts our lament from mine to yours to theirs to ours. These are our laments. We bring all of these laments to our king. We bring all of this suffering to our king. It's all jumbled up. It's all messy. It's soaked in tears. It's soaked in blood. And while it overwhelms us, we trust that it does not overwhelm him. We trust that the God who saved them in verses one through eight is the God who saves us now. But what if that salvation is far off? What if our faithfulness leads to our eternal salvation, but not an earthly salvation? What if our trust in him slays us before it saves us? Is the moon still round? Is God still good? Because the psalmist has brought us all the way up to verse 17. And if verses one through eight reflect God's promises in Deuteronomy to bless his faithful people, then it would be natural for us to have read through verse 16 and expect that all the afflictions of nine to sixteen are the just consequences of God's promises that he made in Deuteronomy to afflict his faithless people. That's what we're expecting. It's coming from the same text. If the Israelites are faithful, blessing. If the Israelites are faithless, affliction. Those are the promises of Deuteronomy. And we are expecting to get to verse 17 and find what we find in Psalm 51. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. But that's not verse 17. Verse 17 says, "All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant." The record scratch is ear-splitting. What do we do with this? What do we do with 17 to 22? And we feel this tension deep within us from this unexpected turn, because we instinctively want suffering to make sense. We're trying to make sense of the world around us, and we need suffering to make sense. And that instinct has led some readers to conclude when they read this that the Psalmist is actually mistaken about his innocence. They think that there must actually be some hidden sin behind these afflictions that he's just not aware of. But I think that actually, that neglects one, the truthfulness of Scripture, and two, it overlooks the evidence in the text. The Psalmist is going to double down on his claim in verse 18, and then he's going to appeal to God's omniscience as his witness. He's got two or three witnesses here. We should trust that he really is blameless. And so others understand this Psalm, they would say, "Well, okay, it's not his sin, but he's part of the righteous remnant suffering for the sins of his countrymen." And I think there's some things to be said in favor of that position. I think it has some really interesting typological implications, but I actually still don't find it convincing. And the reason that I don't think that they're just suffering for the sins of others is because I don't think that's how Paul is going to treat Psalm 44 when he meditates on it in Romans 8. And more importantly, like the first option, it requires that there always be a direct line that we can draw from our suffering to the sin that caused it. And that faulty assumption is what Job's friends argue page after page after page in the book of Job. It ultimately undermines what is an incredibly important and a political category of the righteous sufferer. And if we don't have the righteous sufferer, we don't have Job. And more importantly, if we don't have the righteous sufferer, we don't have Christ. And so I think a third option is the best option. The Psalmist is blameless in the same sense that Job was blameless, not perfectly sinless, but walking faithfully before God. And he is therefore suffering not for the sake of sin, but for the sake of the glorious name of God. Verse 22, "For your sake, we are being killed all the day long." Does God use suffering to expose sin in our hearts and lives? Yes, absolutely. And the response is to repent and believe. But Psalm 44 is reminding us that sometimes the response to suffering isn't just look harder for the sin. Actually, it's to join in the sufferings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. enter rest in the steadfast love of our heavenly Father, even if that leads to a bitter earthly end. And this goes against everything within us. Modern American sensibilities, we can't handle a dramatic tragedy. We're not the Greeks, we're not Shakespeare. We want to rewrite Romeo and Juliet. We want to spur the ending of Orpheus in Eurydice. And while the glorious promises of the gospel are guaranteed to end well in the next life, it makes no such promises in this life. In fact, this is important. In fact, the call to Christ is first a call to come and die before it is a call to rise again. To die, to sin, to die to self, to be crucified with Christ so that it's no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. It's what we're going to see pictured in just a moment when we get to baptize Ali and Blanca and Caleb. They will be buried with Christ in a death like his and raised to walk in newness of life. And so if the Christian life is marked by dying to self and rising with Christ, should it surprise us? That God often writes this same pattern into our everyday lives as well. We are quick here to reject works based salvation. Grace alone by faith alone, amen? And we sneer at all forms of overt so-called prosperity gospel teachings. When it comes to blessings, we gladly receive gifts. We have not earned and recognize that that is grace. Amen. But what about suffering? Can we trust God when He gives hardships that we haven't earned? Can we say with Job the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord? Can God take your comforts, your health, your security, your prospects, your reputation, your friends and family, and even your life and still be good? That's not just a question for those families we just sent as missionaries to some of the least reached people on the planet. That's not just a question for our brothers and sisters born and in God's providence under oppressive regimes. That's not just a question for Job or the Psalmist. That is a question for each of us. If God takes what you hold most dear that is not Him, is He still good? Yes. Yes. Yes. A resounding a thousand times for all eternity. Yes. And it's in the face of these very afflictions that we find some of our favorite passages. It's actually a meditation on these very afflictions that prompts Paul to write Romans chapter 8. It's there that he finds the sufferings of this present time they're not worthy with comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. And so, yes, we groan. Yes, we lament. Yes, we eagerly long for our adoption as sons and daughters. And we cling to the promise that God works all things for good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We cling to that hope. Even if this life doesn't give us the tastes of heaven we long for, we trust that in Christ our physical deaths are the only tastes of hell we'll ever know. And that is the confidence we need for whatever trial may come. And how is that possible? How can we have that kind of confidence that laying down our lives will be worth it? Here's Paul's response in Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, as it is written? Where is it written? Psalm 44 verse 22. For your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Neither death nor life nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. Church, Psalm 44 teaches us that faithfulness is not a contract guaranteeing earthly comfort. Sometimes the path of faithfulness leads through affliction. Sometimes trusting God costs us things we desperately want to keep. Sometimes as verse 22 reminds us, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But if nothing, nothing, nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ, then even when our trust slays us, it cannot ultimately destroy us. And that's why the psalmist doesn't walk away at the end of verse 22. But he turns to God. He cries to the one who saves us. Let's look at this final cry. The cry to the one who saves us, verses 23 to 26. The psalmist afflictions as deep and as varied and as painful as they may be, they have not eclipsed his faith. In fact, it's precisely because he believes that God is always good, that God alone saves, that God hears prayer, and that God loves his people with an everlasting love. It's precisely because he believes those things, that he dares to pray this boldly. And so, with desperate cries that are brimming and overflowing with emotion and metaphor, he pleads for salvation. Like Jesus' disciples on the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 8, he calls God to wake up, or ask His rescue His people. And notice where His confidence ultimately rests. He doesn't place His hope in better circumstances or stronger armies, political solutions, or human ingenuity. He cries out to God to act. He begs God to redeem His people, to literally buy back those He has sold for a trifle. And what's the ultimate basis for this request? It's the same it's always been. It's not His worth, or His effort, or His track record of faith, or even His blamelessness. When it comes down to it, He builds His case on the very heart of God. Look at verse 26, "Rodimus for the sake of your steadfast love." Psalm 44 teaches us that we can cry to the Lord in our most desperate need on the basis of His steadfast love. You know, Psalm 44 does teach us that there are afflictions we experience that we don't deserve. But the Bible also teaches us there is one judgment we do deserve. Every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. of God. We, like foolish sheep, have gone astray. We have turned each one to our own way, and the consequence of that rebellion is death. And not merely physical death, but eternal separation from God under His just wrath for sin. All the afflictions of Psalm 44 pale in comparison to this. But just like Psalm 44, there is nothing we can do in our own strength to fix it, to overcome it, to avoid it. But there is one, there is one who has perfectly fulfilled Psalm 44 line by line, who did nothing apart from his heavenly Father, who lived the perfect, sinless, blameless life we couldn't live and voluntarily suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God. And after satisfying the righteous requirements of the law in his death, Jesus literally rose up and came to our help. And for all those who repent of their sins and believe in Him, who receive His forgiveness in faith, He offers redemption for the sake of His steadfast love. If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I plead now, would you turn and trust in this Savior? I would love to talk with you more about that after the service. You can find me right down here when we're all done. Or even better yet, just turn a person nearest to you and tell them you want to know more about what it means to follow Christ. I know that they would love nothing more than to tell you of the mighty deeds of our Savior and King Jesus. And brothers and sisters, if you trust Christ to save you from sin, death and hell, then why do we hesitate to trust Him with every ounce of the rest of our suffering as well? Are there prayers you're afraid to pray? Are there sorrows you feel guilty bringing to God? Are there questions you think are too raw, too painful, too honest? Psalm 44 reminds us that faith doesn't bury those sorrows in the dust. It doesn't silence those cries. Faith brings them to God. Faith entrusts those afflictions to Him. And as we entrust those afflictions to Him, we entrust them to our fellow sufferers along the way so that together we can carry one another's burdens and sorrows to the one whose steadfast love never ceases. And we do this even when our circumstances make it hard to see that God is always good. Brothers and sisters, Psalm 44 is a gift. It is a gift from God for dark and moonless nights when all we can see is suffering, shame and affliction. When the diagnosis doesn't change, when the depression doesn't lift, when news outside these walls or inside these walls is hard to bear, when the storm keeps raging, Psalm 44 gives us permission and perspective to keep praying, to keep crying out, to keep trusting, not because we understand our suffering, but because we know the character of the God we trust. We have seen the place where God's goodness looked most hidden and yet was most fully on display. We have seen the cross and the empty tomb. And because Christ died and rose again, we know that God's steadfast love never ceases, even when circumstances make it difficult to see. So keep praying. Psalm 44 prayers. And depend on God's loving power to save from sweet victory to the bitter end. Let's do that now. Let's pray.