This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome to our look at Psalm 13. This is week three, day three of
our look through the book of Psalms. And let me begin by reading for you Psalm
three, verses one to six.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face
from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in
my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death.

My enemy will say I have overcome him and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But
I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me. I love this Psalm because it
expresses the cry of our hearts, a cry that we've heard a number of times now in
the book of Psalms. This is a Psalm that was probably written during David's
years of exile when Saul was pursuing him.

You might remember that David was anointed as king but Saul was still the king
and Saul accepted it at first but then became very angry and pursued for many
years, pursued David trying to take his life. And during these years of exile is
probably when this was written. How long, Lord, do we have to be in exile?

How long until the prayer gets answered? How long until the need gets met? How
long until the change comes?

That phrase, how long, it's repeated four times in the first two verses. So if
you're feeling that way today, this is the perfect Psalm for you. What do you do
when you feel that way?

David shows us the way here. What do you do when you feel it's never going to
happen? God's never going to answer my prayer.

Why are you hiding your face from me, God? When you feel that way, David shows
us the things that we need to do very clearly. First he says, you pray for an
answer.

Look on me and answer, oh Lord, my God, he says. You don't give up. You keep
talking to God and you keep asking God to answer.

Now you may not feel like he's going to answer. You may not be sure of that but
even in your doubt, even in your confusion, keep talking to God because as long
as you're talking, you're keeping the relationship real and keeping the
relationship fresh. And that's the start of all the other things that we're
going to talk about, the specific things that David does.

So you keep talking to the Lord. And then second, you pray for restoration of
sight to your eyes. Talking spiritual here.

You pray to see it like God sees it. Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in
death, he says. Now the truth here is that David was recognizing that his very
life was in God's hands.

If you don't give me light every day in my eyes, I'm going to be dead, God. But
there's also a spiritual truth here. Until you see it like God sees it, you are
in essence asleep to all that God is doing even during this terrible time of
waiting.

So to get through this time, you need to see it like God sees it and to see it
like God sees it, you need God to give light to your eyes. So you say, God, give
light to my eyes. Help me to see it like you see it.

There's a third thing that you do. There's six things that David's going to do
here. And there's a third thing that you do in this psalm when you feel like how
long.

You pray against your enemies. You say, Lord, if there's some evil in the way of
your goodwill, remove it. And Lord, get the enemies out of my way as I'm going
through this.

In verse four, my enemy will say I have overcome him and my foes will rejoice
when I fall. He recognizes in this midst of this how long feeling that there are
people out there who want to ridicule him for having faith in the midst of this.
There are those who want you to fail.

There are those that want to turn your how long into a I give up. And even if
there are no human beings who you can point to who feel that way, they may have
popped into your mind right away. But even if there are no human beings that you
can point to, Satan is certainly your enemy.

So you pray against your enemy. You recognize that they want you to fail, but
that God's strength is greater. And then you do the fourth thing.

You trust in God's love. But I trust in your unfailing love, David said. This is
the greatest moment of change, of heart change, when you're overwhelmed by
feelings of doubt.

Saying to God, I trust in your unfailing love. Now trust is not feeling. Trust
is trusting.

It is believing. Whatever you happen to be feeling, that God's love is
unfailing. And that's not a feeling, God's unfailing love.

It is a fact. God has told us again and again that his love for you is unfailing
for every one of us and he's proved it on the cross that he has an unfailing
love for us. All that is in this world today will someday fail and disappear,
but God's love for you will never fail.

Trust in that truth. That's how you get through the how long until the answer's
going to come, Lord, times in your life. You trust in God's unfailing love, and no
matter what kind of trust, because he has a no matter what kind of love for you.

Then you do the fifth thing out of that. You rejoice in your rescue. My heart
rejoices in your salvation.

You don't know when it's going to come. You don't know how it's going to come. But
even before it comes, you can rejoice in the truth that it will come.

You rejoice in the fact that God will someday rescue you. And you think, I don't
see it. I don't see how he could ever rescue me.

Truth of the matter is that rescue may come on this planet. I hope that it does,
but it certainly is going to come in heaven. And that's going to be an eternal rescue.

So you rejoice in advance in your rescue. And then you do a sixth very practical
thing. You sing to the Lord.

I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me. Some translations say he has
dealt bountifully with me. So you sing to the Lord.

When you're feeling how long, when you're feeling doubt even, don't stop
singing. Now, you might sing different songs. You might sing songs that have to
do with trusting God in times of doubt.

You don't have to sing all the happy, happy, joy, joy songs when you're feeling
this way. But don't stop singing. 'Cause there's something about singing that
connects your heart to your experiences and to the Lord.

There's something about singing that connects your heart to your experiences and
to the Lord. When you're singing, you're not going to make that connection. I know
a lot of people, when they're going through times of doubt, they stop singing in
church.

They stop singing in the car. Don't stop singing. Start singing again.

When you're feeling, Lord, how long? When's the answer going to come? You pray
through these six things.

So let's do it together right now. Lord, right now, and it's just a brief time
of prayer, we do what David did. We pray for an answer.

What are we waiting for? We've waited so long for. Once again, we bring it to
You.

God, we pray for a restoration of sight to our eyes. We pray that we would see
it like you see it. We may not understand why we're needing to wait, but help us
to see what You're doing in us as we're waiting.

Help us to see the heart You want us to have towards You as we're waiting. Help
us to see it like you see it. We pray against our enemies, especially that great
enemy Satan, the accuser.

We pray against his accusations and instead we choose a conviction of heart that
we can trust you even through this. And so we pray that fourth thing, we trust
in your unfailing love. I just say it to you Lord, maybe even out loud right
now, God, I trust in your unfailing love.

And out of that trust, I rejoice in the rescue that is coming someday. I don't
know when it's going to come or how it's going to come, but I trust that it will
come because I trust you. I trust you.

And so today put a song in my heart, in my mind, and through the day help me to
sing it to you. Maybe put something on right now Lord that would be something I
could sing back to you. And let that song connect my heart to you in the midst
of this circumstance.

I ask this in the powerful name of Jesus, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look
together at Psalm 14, which begins, "The fool says in his heart, there is no
God.