Let’s do one on the fly right now – make a sentence in your mind with the following three words: bacon, fitness and doughnut.
Here’s mine: When I’m through fitness doughnut in my mouth, I’m going to have another piece of bacon.
One day in class, the teacher asked little Johnny to give a sentence that included the following three words: detail, defeat, and defense.
Little Johnny scratched his chin for a moment and then he said, “When a horse jumps over defense, defeat go first and then detail.”
For many of us, little Johnny sounds like a prophet, because defeat does feel like it comes first in our lives.
So, how do we deal with defeat?
I’m not talking about just your team losing the game.
I’m talking about the kind of defeat that is deeper and more painful than anything we have experienced before.
What do we do then?
What do we do when we feel overcome with defeat?
Being the leader of a nation, King David knew a lot about victory and a lot about defeat.
How did he handle defeat?
Let’s find out – listen to Psalm 13, verse 4…
4 And my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
Isn’t that just one of the worst things in life?
The other team wins, and they start throwing an L on their foreheads and calling you a loser.
Or your favorite candidate comes up short in the election and you have to see and hear the other side brag and gloat all over the Twittersphere.
Or you and your date are arguing over the correct interstate exit to use to get to Graceland and you end up being wrong and feel like singing “Don’t Be Cruel”.
David isn’t just feeling defeated, he’s feeling the stress of his enemy gloating.
Someone might say, “He just needs to suck it up and use his failure as a life lesson and try to win the Super Bowl next year.”
But there’s something else going on here with the enemy.
Billy Crystal did an impression of Edward G. Robinson from the movie The Ten Commandments and he said… “Where’s your Messiah, now, see? Where’s your Moses now?”
David’s enemy wasn’t just going to call him a loser.
His enemy was going to say…
“Where’s your God?”
“I thought he was supposed to be holy, holy, holy!”
“I thought he was supposed to be the great I AM!”
“Didn’t you say he was God and there was no other?”
“Looks like you got scammed, David!”
“Looks like you bought into a mythical religion!”
“You lost and I won!”
We all experience loss and defeat in life.
The other team may win at the buzzer
The other company may win the bid
The other candidate may win the election
The snowstorm may knock out power for a week
The tornado may devastate your hometown
The sickness may come back
It would be nice if we could always talk about God when we are winning, but that’s not the reality of life.
Someone said the test of our faith is not when things are good and we see God working in our lives – no, the test of our faith will be when God seems distant and he seems to not be working in our lives.
The test of our faith will be when we hear people say…
“Where is your God?”
“If he’s real, why is the world in so much chaos?”
“If he’s real, why are so many people struggling?”
“Why did that candidate win?”
“Why did that pipeline get shut down?”
“Why is this pandemic still causing problems?”
“Why this deadly snowstorm?”
“Why that deadly tornado?”
“Why did the sickness come back?”
So, is there an answer?
Yes.
Psalm 115:2
Why should the nations say, “Where, now, is their God?”
Why should non-Christians ask, “Where is your God?”
Psalm 115:4
Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands.
Psalm 115:5
They have mouths, but they cannot speak; They have eyes, but they cannot see;
Psalm 115:6
They have ears, but they cannot hear; They have noses, but they cannot smell;
Psalm 115:7
They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk;
Psalm 115:7
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
Psalm 115:8
Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.
All people, Christian and non-Christian, are inclined to only believe in what they can see.
For the Christian, thankfully, we have saving faith to help us fight the good fight of confidently believing in what we can’t see.
How are we doing at fighting that fight?
How much time are we spending believing in what we see and hear on the news or on social media?
Or we are completely ignoring the news and social media and just believing in our personal opinions?
Are we making idols out of fear and anger and apathy?
Non-Christians don’t have a choice – they can’t help but only believe in their families and their jobs and their houses and their hobbies and their cars and their sports and their politics and their philosophies and their finances and their freedom and their scientific theories and their statues and their thoughts and their feelings and their rules because they can’t help but only believe in what they can see and touch and feel and argue and debate and eat and sing and watch and listen to.
So, it is not confusing or surprising that they would ask, “Where is your God?”, because the God of Israel is not an idol or a political party or a scientific theory or a source of entertainment.
So, let’s not be foolish, arrogant Christians that get mad at people who don’t believe in God or don’t think like we think or vote like we vote.
They don’t know God and they don’t know where he is because they are looking for him in all the wrong places – and sometimes, so are we.
So, where is God?
Psalm 115:3
But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.
Unlike me and unlike you and unlike every King and Queen and President who has ever lived, God is good and wise and just and right and perfect all day every day.
Therefore, he’s the only one who can truly do whatever he pleases.
If I do whatever I please with my taxes, I might get away with it for 5 or maybe even 10 years, but eventually it will catch up with me.
Nothing catches up with God.
He is in the heavens.
He is good and his love endures forever
He is wise and his judgments endure forever
He is powerful and his actions endure forever
He is sovereign and his plans endure forever
The sovereignty and goodness of God are reflections of his character – he’s always sovereign and good.
So, where is our God?
He is in the heavens being perfectly good and sovereign because he can’t be anything else.
Someone may ask, “If he’s good and sovereign then why is the world in chaos.”
The world is in chaos because of sin.
The world is in chaos because of rebellion against God – and that didn’t start in Germany in 1921 or at UC Berkley in 1964 or with the presidential election in 2020 – it started with the first man and first woman in the garden.
The world is in chaos because of my sin and your sin and the sin of politicians and parents and coaches and players and pastors and teachers and lawyers and students and Uber drivers and line chefs and toddlers and teenagers and senior citizens.
But the world is not willing to look in the mirror and own that, so, we blame it on Biden and Cruz and Wall Street and video games and the church and the clerk at the local Circle K that rang up our doughnuts wrong.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the sin of other people doesn’t matter – it does.
It just means that far too many of us professing Christians seem to think that Jesus was a liar.
What do we think Jesus lied about?
Matthew 7:3
Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Listen, the specks matter – we can’t just turn a blind eye to sin in the world.
But Jesus is saying if we aren’t wise and careful, we will spend the whole day fussing about the sin of others and ignore the sin in our own home – and that’s dangerous.
I was reading a marriage counseling article this week about the sinful power of selfishness and it bluntly said, “You give sin an inch, and it may take you to hell.”
The specks matter, but we have been called first and most to pay attention to the logs.
About 600 years before Jesus was born the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah.
Listen to this one unique statement God made…
Jeremiah 2:8
“The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’”
The entire country was deep in sin and even the people of the church would not turn to God.
Someone once said that God is not worshipped when times are good, but he seems to be pulled out as a whipping boy when times are bad.
So, where is God?
He is in the heavens being perfectly good and sovereign because he can’t be anything else.
And here’s the beauty of the gospel.
Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us!
So, in stunning and supernatural ways that we can’t explain in human terms, God is not just in the heavens, but in and through Jesus, God is right here, right now.
One day Jesus was talking to some religious leaders and he said this…
John 8:18
…the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.
And the religious leaders asked him, “Where is your father?” – where is your God?
This is how Jesus responded to their question…
John 8:19
“…if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.”
So, if someone asks, “Where is your God?”, we can easily and joyfully respond, “Consider the truth about Jesus. Because Jesus said if you know him you will know God.”
Or put another way, our message has never changed…
Repent and believe in Jesus and be saved – be made right with God.
And what is the benefit of being right with God?
That question brings us back to the first question…
How did David handle defeat?
He’s turning to God because he’s right with God – he has a personal relationship with the one, true God!
He’s turning to God and lamenting in prayer.
What does it mean to lament?
In his book, “Dark Clouds-Deep Mercy”, Mark Vroegop says there are four key characteristics of lamenting…
Turn
Complain
Ask
Trust
You turn to God
You complain to God
You ask God
You trust God
That’s what David is doing.
He can feel the breath of the enemy on his neck
He can see the fist of the enemy raised in victory
He can hear the voice of the enemy mocking his name
And in that moment, he turns to God.
He feels alone and he feels defeated, but he knows that’s ultimately a lie from his social media feed.
Kaitlin Miller works in the Support Center at Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Georgia – a few years ago, she wrote this about the reality of what it means to have saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Kaitlin Miller
You may have had a friend desert you, but you are not deserted.
Kaitlin Miller
You may have had a spouse abandon you, but you are not abandoned.
Kaitlin Miller
You may have failed, but you are not a failure.
Kaitlin Miller
You may have never known your father, but you are not fatherless.
Kaitlin Miller
Life may be crushing, but you are not crushed.
No matter who or what your enemy may be, if you are in Christ all of those things are true and the only way you can start feeling those things in your soul is by doing this…
Kaitlin Miller
The only way to take back our true, God-given identity, with unshakable confidence, is to look to the One who gives us our identity in the first place.
That’s what David is doing in the middle of defeat.
He’s looking to the One who gave him identity.
He’s turning to God.
And how much did this powerful king need to turn to God?
Listen to what he says next…
4 And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.
David was a man’s man – and he was shaken.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your pain and your fear and your anger and your discouragement and your despair and your depression and your defeat is not real.
Likewise, don’t let anyone, especially yourself, persuade you to worship those things in your life.
David knew his enemies would rejoice over him and it would shake him up down to his very soul.
But part of his turning to God and lamenting to God is that he knew he could trust God – no matter what.
Part of trusting God is trusting him when you can’t see what’s going on and how everything is going to work out.
That’s not blind faith or blind trust – it’s seeing with the eyes of faith.
What does that mean?
I’ve shared with you before about my friend Elton Jones who was in a horrible accident on his chicken farm and lost both of his legs.
In three decades of ministry, I’ve never experienced anything like the day I got to Elton’s farm surrounded by ambulances and a helicopter and walked up to see what had happened to his body.
Elton looked up at me and smiled and said, “Dow, go get my Bible out the glove compartment of my pickup truck and come read to me.”
Elton and his wife Gail had become two of our closest family friends in our small country church.
If fact, Gail was at my house for my oldest daughter’s birthday when I got the call from the farm.
Elton was in the Pitt County Hospital for 40 days and the first 20 were kind of scary and unknown and touch and go with a lot of things.
It was a 50-minute drive to the hospital from the church – I don’t know how many times I went to visit him, but I went as often as I could.
Elton eventually got out of the hospital and got prosthetic legs and spent the rest of his life going all over the world to serve the Lord in more ways than before the accident.
He experienced great defeat and the loss of his legs – but like David he kept turning the Lord – and he kept walking.
A few months later, in the middle of the night my pregnant wife shook me and said it was time to go to the hospital – same hospital, same 50-minute drive.
But this time it was the dark of night with the added benefit of some of the thickest fog I have ever seen in my life.
I couldn’t see 5 yards ahead of me.
But I didn’t have any trouble – I had driven that road so many times that year that I could have driven it that night with my eyes closed – and I was kind of sleepy, so, I kind of did.
You know what David did when he felt defeated?
You know what David did when his enemies made everything feel dark?
He kept driving – because the One who created him – the one who is in the heavens – the One who is perfectly good and sovereign – He knows the way.
One more kicker on this – David didn’t have the story of the cross.
So, in our moments of defeat, when we don’t know how everything is going to work out, dear Christian, you can trust in the one who made the lame to walk and the blind to see – Jesus doesn’t just know the way – he is the way.
eso. How good are you at making sentences? What kind of sentence maker Are you? Okay? We're going a little a little activity here. I'm going to give you three words, and I want you to make up a sentence with these three words. Okay, here's your three words. Bacon, doughnut and fitness. Bacon, doughnut and fitness. All right. See what? You got a few seconds. Come up with a sentence. Bacon, doughnut fitness. All right. I want you to all tell me your sentence at the same time. I'm just getting this fine. Uh, here's mine. When I'm through fitting this doughnut in my mouth, I'm going to eat another piece of bacon. There you go. All three words right there. You got it? Yeah, that's it. You get it. One day in class, the teacher asked. Little Johnny said, I want you to make a sentence with three words. And these were the three words detail, defeat and defense detail. Defeat on defense. So little Johnny thought for a moment and he said, Alright, I got one teacher and this was his sentence. E forgot my doing it. He said this when ah, horse jumps over defense defeat. Go first and then detail. Well, Johnny, you got it. You know, no confusion there. You know, for many of us, the little Johnny sounds like a profit, Right? Because defeat seems to come first far too often in our lives. We experienced defeat and lost way more than we want to. So what do we do? What do we do when defeat comes our way? And I'm not just talking about your team losing the game. I'm talking about that pain that hurt that frustration that stress, that anxiety that is so deep and so powerful that it just throws your whole world out a while. That kind of defeat. What do you do with that kind of defeat? What do you do when defeat feels like it is over? Whelming? Well, King David being the leader of an entire nation, he understood the reality of victory and the reality of defeat. He had had a lot of both in his life. And so how did he handle defeat? What did David do with defeat? See if we can find out some 13 Verse four. David says this and my enemy will say I have overcome him. Isn't this just like the worst moment in life. The other team wins, you know, and they immediately throw open L on their forehead. They start yelling loser across the field that you or your favorite candidate comes up short and you have tow, listen to the other side, brag and gloat all over the Twitter sphere. Or maybe you and your date or arguing over the correct exit to take in Memphis for Elvis Presley's Graceland and you end up being wrong and you just feel like singing. Don't be cruel, you know. It's just in your mind. In your heart, David isn't just feeling defeated. He's feeling the reality that his enemy is about to gloat over him. They're about to scream and yell over him. Now somebody might say, Hey, David, suck it up, buddy. Come on, man, learn from your failure. You know, get back to the Super Bowl next year and win it. But see, there's something else going on here with the enemy. Years ago, Billy Crystal usedto do an impersonation of Edward G. Robinson in the movie The 10 Commandments. His impersonation would go like this. If you know whoever G. Robinson is, he would say, Where's your Messiah now, see? Yeah. Where's your Moses now? Challenging the people about God. See what's about toe happen with David and his enemies. They're not just going to call him a loser. They're going to say, Hey, where is your god, David? Where is your Godat? I thought he was supposed to be Holy. Holy, Holy! I thought he was supposed to be the great I am. David. Didn't you say that your God was God and there was no other David? Sounds like you got scammed, buddy. Sounds like you bought into some kind of a cult. You you bought into some kind of mythical religion because see, here's the reality, David. You lost and I won. So where's your Godnow? We all experience loss and defeat in life way. All do the other team. Other team may win at the buzzer. The other company may win the bid for the project. The other candidate might win the election. The snowstorm might hit and take the power out for a week. The tornado might devastate your hometown. The sickness might come back, see defeat and lost. We all understand it. And wouldn't it be nice? It would be nice if we always got to talk about God when everything was good, when everything was fine, when we were always winning when we were always victorious. But that's not reality. The reality is, is that way. Have to talk about God when things are bad, when things are difficult, when things air tough too, someone once said, It's not the testing of our faith that comes when things were good, when we can say Oh, these are the ways that God is working in my life I see it. I'm so excited. This is good. Let's sing another praise song. That's not when the testing of our faith happens. The testing of our faith happens when God seems far away, when God seems distant. When we feel like God is not working in our lives, when he's not doing anything in our lives, that's when our faith is tested. Our faith is tested. When people say to us, Where is your god? Where's he at? If your God is riel, then why is the world in chaos? If your God is real, then why are so many people struggling? If your God is real, then why did that candidate win. Why did that pipeline get shut down? If you're God, Israel? Why did that snow storm come through? Why did people die from that? Why did that tornado come through? Why did the sickness come back? So is there an answer? Is there an answer to that question? Where? Where is your god? About 900 years before Jesus was born, the psalmist wrote an answer. Someone 15. This is what this on this road. Why should the nation say Where now is their god? Why would a nun Christian ask? Where is your god? Why would they ask that? What would they say? Where where is your god? Well, the psalmist goes on to tell us in someone 15 beginning in verse four Their idols are silver and gold. The work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak. They have eyes, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear. They have noses, but they cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot feel they have feet. But they cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throat. And those who make them will become like them. Everyone who trust in them all people, Christian and non Christian alike. We are inclined toe Onley. Believe in what we can see. That's our inclination for the Christian, though thankfully we have saving faith in Jesus toe. Help us fight the good fight to keep believing confidently and what we can't see. So February 2021 how we doing it, fighting that fight, How are we doing? Is is Christians believing in what we can't see believing in the promises of God? How are we doing at believing in the promises of God? Or are we spending way too much time believing everything way See on TV news and everything we see in our social media feeds? Or are we ignoring TV news and ignoring social media? And we're just kind of believing, and whatever our personal opinions are about, whatever is happening in the world, are we making idols out of our fear? Are we making idols out of our anger? Are we making idols out of our apathy now for non Christians, they don't have a choice. They don't They don't have a choice. They can't help but Onley believe in their family and their friends and their jobs. and their retirement account or their savings account or their checking account or their houses or their cars or their hobbies or their scientific theories or their political theories or anything else in life. They can't help but Onley believe, and what they conceive e and touch and feel and listen to and watch and debate and argue and bedazzle and whatever else they could do, They can Onley believe in what they touch or what they feel. They have no other option, so it's not confusing. It should not be confusing that someone who is not a Christian would say, Hey, where is your god? Because they don't know where he is. They don't know where to look see. God is not an idol. God is not a political party. God is not a scientific theory. God is not a source of entertainment, so therefore they struggle with knowing where God is. They're looking in the wrong place. And, dear Christian, might I say sometimes so are we. We're expecting God to be in these things that we think he should be instead of letting God be who he is. So where is God? Where is he? It's almost tells us it's on 1 15, verse three. But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he please is unlike me. I like you. Unlike every king, every queen, every president, every general, every coach, every pastor, every other person in the universe. God is good wise, right? Just and perfect all day, Every day it never stops. That's why he's the Onley. One who conduce whatever he pleases. See, that's not true for us, okay? I mean, if I decided to do whatever I please with my taxes, I mean, I might get away with it for five years. I don't know, 10 years, maybe. But eventually it's going to catch up with me. And for that matter, we might say way I could get away with anything I want to in life. I can eat whatever I want. Drink whatever I want to drink. Go wherever I wanna go. Do whatever I wanted. I'm fine. You know, I'm fine. I could do whatever I want to, but ultimately it'll catch up with you. It may not catch up with you in the hospital. It may not catch up with you at work or school or with your family. But Jesus said, It'll catch up with you when you stand before God. But here's the thing. Nothing catches up with God. Nothing catches up with him because God is in the heavens. God is perfectly sovereign. He is perfectly good. He can't be anything else. He's always sovereign. He's always good. God is good and his love endures forever. God is wise and his judgments endure forever. God is powerful and his actions endure forever. God is sovereign and his plans endure forever of sovereignty. And the goodness of God are all he can be. It is who he is. It is part of his very character and his nature. He's always sovereign. He's always good. So where is our God? He's in the heavens, being perfectly sovereign, being perfectly good because he's always sovereign and he's always good. No, someone might ask. Well, if God's sovereign and good, then why is the world in chaos? The world is in chaos because since the world is in chaos because of rebellion against God, that's that's why the world is in chaos. The world is in chaos because rebellion against God and that didn't start in Germany in 1921. And that didn't started u C Berkeley in 1964. And that didn't start in the presidential election in 2020. No rebellion against God started with the first man and the first woman in the garden. That's where sin and rebellion against God began. Amongst humanity, the world is in chaos because of my sin. The world is in chaos because of Dow's, since the world is in chaos because of your sin and your spouse's sin and your kids sin and your parents in your politicians sin your coaches, sin your teachers sin. The world is in chaos because of the sin of lawyers and doctors and stay at home moms and line chefs and uber drivers and everybody else in the world. The world is in chaos because of sin. The world's in chaos because of toddlers and teenagers and senior citizens. The world is in chaos because of sin and rebellion against God. But here's catch. The world doesn't want to agree with that. We don't want to agree with that. The world's not willing toe look into the mirror and say, Yeah, I might be part of the problem there it could be me. Maybe something I'm doing is really causing some trouble, worlds and chaos because of sin. But we're not willing to say that When I was in seminary, remember, our seminary president one time said, Hey, when you're preaching, if you're going to say something offensive, just go ahead and tell everybody So it's one of those moments, you know, I might offend some of you with what I'm about to say, but just hang in there with me because there's a truth behind. See, we're not willing to look in the mirror. We're not willing to deal with our sin. And so what we do is we are quick to blame Biden, and we're quick to blame Trump. And we're quick to blame Cruz and were quick to blame. Pelosi were quick to blame. The stock market were quick to blame. The video games were quick to blame. The clerk at the Circle K that rings are doughnut up wrong. See, we're quick toe fuss and argue and complain toward everyone, but our own hearts and our own minds were not willing to look into the mirror. We're just not all of us. Let's start with your pastor. We're just not willing to say, Hey, it could be me. I could be part of the problem. That doesn't mean other people. Sin doesn't matter matters alive. But it does mean that it seems that is professing Christians. We feel like Jesus lied to us. We feel like Jesus lied. So what do we think Jesus lied about? This is what we think. Jesus lied about. Matthew seven Verse three. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye? But do not notice the log that is in your own Bye. Listen to specs matter, okay? A matter suspects matter alive. We can't turn a blind eye to sin in the world. We can't act like these things. They're not going on. We should run for office. We should vote. We should be involved. Okay, We're not being foolish and ignorant. But Jesus is saying if we aren't wise and careful, we will spend the entire day fussing and posting and arguing and complaining about everyone else's sin, all the other people's specs, and will never look at the logs in our own home, in our own family. In our own attitude in our own minds. So therefore our actions seemed to say Jesus must ally because that other person sin is worse than mine. Specs matter. But as believers, we've been called first and most to pay attention to the logs. About 600 years before Jesus was born, the word of the Lord came to the Prophet Jeremiah. Listen to this one little sentence that God gave to Jeremiah Jeremiah to verse eight. The priest did not say Where is the Lord? So in this scene, in this moment in the country, things were chaotic. The nation was full of sin and rebellion and chaos. But the priest pastors, the ministers, the clergy, the congregation, the church members they weren't turning to the Lord. They weren't saying, Hey, where's God? God help us in this. Someone once said that God is not worship when things were good. But, boy, we're going to blame him when things are bad. We're going to say he's falling down on the job when things aren't going the way we want them to go. But we won't worshiping When things were good when things were good Hey, we're going to go to the beach, We're going to go the lake. We're going to go the mountains. We're going to hang out. We're you know, we're just going to do whatever when things were good. We're not going to worry. We're not going to pray. We're not going to be desperate because things are good. We're fine. But when things are bad, our first response is, Well, why God? God, there were 73 tornadoes that didn't hit my town last year. Why'd you let with one? That's that's what we do. We we ignore and worship God when things were good. But boy will blame him when things are bad. So where's God? Gods in the heavens being perfectly sovereign and perfectly good because he can't be anything else. He is always sovereign. He is always good. And here's the beauty of the gospel. The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus is known as Emmanuel God with us. So in some stunning supernatural way that cannot be explained in human terms, God is not just in the heavens being sovereign and good. But God is right here he is right now with us being sovereign and good. Jesus was talking to some religious leaders one day, and this is what he said to him. John Chapter eight, Verse 18 The father who sent me testifies about May, So Jesus says the father. He's given commercyals about me for a few 100 years now, and the religious leader said, Hey, where is your father? In other words and where is your God? And this is how Jesus responded to them. If you knew me, you would know my father also. So if someone says to us, Where is your god? We can easily n joyfully say, Hey, consider the truth about Jesus because Jesus said, if you know him, then you will know God, God is in the heavens, being sovereign and good and through Jesus. God is here in our midst, among us in our hearts and our minds being sovereign and good. Or put another way, the message of the church has never changed. The church may not always give the message, but the message God gave the church has never changed. And that message is simply this. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is that repent and believe in Jesus, repent and believe in Jesus and be made right with God. What's the benefit of that? What's the benefit of being right with God? well, that brings us all the way back to our first question about David. How did David deal with defeat? David dealt with defeat by turning to God by turning to God and turning to God and turning to God over and over again. David had a relationship, a personal relationship with one true living God, and he kept turning to that Godover and over again. And there were times when he turned to that God. He would love me, meant lament means he would take all of this pain and all of his anger and all of this fear and all of this frustration. And he would say here, God, please do something with this mess. In his book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy marked, Rogoff says, There's four key characteristics of lamenting, and they go like this. Turn, complain, ask and trust. What that means is this. It means that we take our pain, our frustration in our fear and our discouragement, and we turn first and most. We turn to God and we complain first and most on social media on comments to the newspaper first and most, that's where we complain, right? No. First and most as believers. We complain to God, we take our complaints to God. And first and most we ask God to do something about our complaints. And then maybe most importantly, we first and most trust God. We trust him. We trust God to be who he is. We trust that God is the same God who, through ages past, has helped men and women and boys and girls. We trust him because he's proven himself over and over and over again. That's what David's doing, David. He can feel the breath of the enemy on his neck. He can see his enemy raising hiss, fist and victory toe shout over to gloat over him. He can hear the voice of the enemy beginning to call him a loser. And in that moment, David turns to God. And that moment, he says, there's nowhere else for me to run. God, I need you, Lord, I need you. He feels alone. He feels defeated, but he knows it's not true. He knows feeling alone and feeling defeated. That's just a lie that he got into social media feed. He knows that at the very least, his defeat is temporary. It's not ultimate because he's Mawr have been a conqueror and he will be for 10,000 years. And to infinity, he does feel alone. But he knows it's not true. Caitlin Miller works at the support center for Chick fil A in Atlanta, Georgia. A few years ago, she wrote this about what it means to have saving faith in Jesus. You may have had a friend desert you, but you are not deserted. You may have had a spouse abandoned you, but you are not abandoned. You may have failed, but you are not a failure. You may have never known your father, but you are not fatherless. Life may be crushing, but you are not crushed no matter who you are. If you are in Christ, no matter what happens, all of those things that Kaylin road, they're all true. But sometimes we don't feel them to me. Well, the way we feel and there's only one thing we can really do, there's only one way we can feel that all those things are true and Caitlin gives it to us. This is what she says next. The only way to take back our true God given identity with unshakeable confidence is to do this is to look to the one who gives us our identity in the first place. If you're a believer, your identity is in Christ. Ultimately, it's not what you think about you. It's not what your parents think about you. It's not what your spouse thinks about you. It's not what your friends think about you. That's not what your pastor, your politicians or your coaches or anybody else on the planet thinks about you. If you are in Christ, your identity is in Christ. David in the middle of his defeat, he's turning back to the one who gave him his identity. He's not ignoring this truth. He's looking to the one who made him. He's turning to God. And how much did he need to turn to God? How overwhelmed with defeat was David? Look what he says next, Verse four. And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. David was a man's man, but he was shaken. And so please don't let anyone tell you, but your fear, your anger, your frustration, your despair, your discouragement, your sense of defeat, your depression. Don't let anyone tell you it's not really don't let anyone tell you it's not really. But likewise, don't let anyone, especially yourself, persuade you toe worship those things in your life to make those things bigger than God in your life To make those things primary in your life. David knew his enemies. They were about to rejoice over him, and they knew it was going to shake him down to his very soul. But he knew he could turn to God. See, part of trusting God is turning to God when things air dark. Part of trusting God is not trusting him when things are good, it's part of it, but a bigger part of his trusting God. When things were not good, when things were not going the way we want them to go. When things are not normal, we don't stop trusting God. We don't stop. We trust him even when things air dark. When we don't understand what's going on and we don't know how everything's going to work out. Now, look, that's not blind faith. That's not blind trust. It's it's looking at things with the eyes of what does that mean? And was it, like in real life, I've told you before about my friend Elton Jones. Elton lost the bottom part of both of his legs in an accident on his chicken farm and in 30 30 years, three decades of ministry. Now I've never had a moment like the moment when I showed up at the farm that day. Multiple ambulances helicopter, and he's just mass chaos. And I got over to the place and saw what had happened to Elton's body. And Elton looked up at me with a smile on his face. Hit out. Grab my Bible out of the glove compartment, the truck. Come read to me, Justus, calm and cool and casual is anything. I mean, just just come regards word to me. That's what I want. Just let me hear God's work. Elton and his wife, Gail. They had become two of our closest friends. I was pastoring a very small country church in eastern North Carolina, and they had just become dear friends of ours. Elton was in the Pit county Hospital in Greenville, North Carolina, for 40 days, and most of those 40 days it was touch and go. There was some scary danger through the whole process. I don't know how many times I went down there during the 40 days, but it was a lot. I don't think I went every day, but I probably went close. It was a 50 minute drive, 50 like almost a now, er, one way to the hospital from my house that was next door to the church. Elton eventually got out of the hospital. He got two prosthetic legs, and he spent the rest of his life serving God all over the world, taking the gospel to people in ways he had never done before. His accident. In other words, just like David Elton when he was defeated. When he lost his legs, he turned to God and he kept walking. Kept walk. A few months later, my wife elbowed me in the middle of the night. My pregnant wife elbowed me in the middle of the night and said, Hey, time to go. So I went back to the same hospital 50 minutes away. The difference this time was his middle of night. It was dark, and also to my benefit. That night there was a huge, gigantic thick fog. I mean, crazy for I couldn't see five yards in front of. But here's the thing for 40 days. And more than that, I had driven the path to that hospital so many times. I mean, I could have driven it with my eyes closed, and I was half asleep that night, so I kind of did drive it with my eyes closed that night, you know? But I knew the way because I had already been the way you know, what David did when he felt defeated. You know what he did when his enemies were screaming over him when they were gloating over him when they were making everything feel dark? This is what David did. Can't walking. He kept driving because his identity within the one who sits in the heavens, the one who does whatever he pleases, the one who is always sovereign and good. David kept walking. He kept driving because God knows the way he knows the way. But there's a little catch. David didn't have the story about Jesus. There's another 900 years before Jesus was even born. So David didn't have the story of Jesus. Didn't have the story of Christmas. He didn't have the story of Easter. He had the story of the cross you have the story of the empty tomb in that story the resurrection, the ascension, the promise return. David didn't have all those things, but we do so when things air dark when things were frustrated. When you feel defeated when your enemy is screaming over you, when your enemy is blowing up your social media feeds Dear Christian, you can keep believing in the one who made the blind to see and the lame toe. Jesus does not know the way Jesus does not know the way friend Jesus. Yes, the way and that will never change. 10,000 years from now, Jesus will still be the way he's the way he's the truth. He's alive.
