AT A GLANCE

In this message from 2 Samuel 1, we revisit David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan and discover the biblical practice of lament: a prayer of pain that leads to trust. You’ll learn four practical steps for processing grief, disappointment, betrayal, suffering, and loss in a way that deepens your faith rather than weakens it. If you’ve been carrying pain you don’t know what to do with, this message is for you.

REAL FAITH

Last week we studied the lament David wrote for Saul and Jonathan in the wake of their deaths. I pointed out how powerful lament can be and noted that Christians today have largely lost this discipline. We tend to move quickly through painful experiences without really processing them. Or we put on a façade of strength, denying the pain we feel. It’s almost as though we’ve come to believe the Christian faith is a stoic one—or worse, only a happy one.

But the Bible doesn’t present a faith that is only happy, only celebratory, or only victorious. It presents a faith that is real. Lament is not contrary to the Christian life; it is one of God’s gifts to help His people navigate pain faithfully.

We’re so eager to make people feel better that we rarely take time to lament with them—or to lament ourselves. We live under this pressure to “get over it,” whatever “it” may be.

I know that tendency well. When Kennedy died, I felt affirmed whenever I quickly diverted my attention from my pain to the Lord. When I spiritualized her death, talked about seeing her again, and turned every conversation from the pain of loss to the hope of glory, I felt I was doing right by the Lord and by His people.

And those truths are precious. They are absolutely true. The promises of God are the steady ballast that keeps us from capsizing in the storms of life. But those promises never require us to pretend there isn’t a storm. The Lord never calls us to deny our suffering. He invites us to bring it to Him.

That is exactly what lament does. It teaches us to bring our whole selves before the Lord—not just our theology, but our grief, our confusion, our disappointment, our fears, our sins, and our questions. And that is exactly what David models here.

Listen again to how this passage 2 Samuel begins: And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar. 2 Samuel 1:17-18

Think about that for a moment. David didn’t simply write a lament. He commanded that it be taught.

Why? Because God’s people need to know how to grieve faithfully. David understood that lament wasn’t merely appropriate for this moment in Israel’s history; it was a discipline every generation would need. They needed to know how to bring pain into the presence of God instead of pretending it wasn’t there. 

And so do we. Let’s read another of David’s laments and consider the pattern he used as we consider how to lament ourselves. 

Psalm 12

Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. 2 Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. 3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, 4 those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?” 5 “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.” 6 The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. 7 You, O Lord, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever. On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

REJOICE ALWAYS

Whenever I think about processing hard feelings this refrain echoes in my ears, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Philippians 4:4 This verse, though, has many Christians feeling they cannot lament sin, loss, injustice, travesty, injury, disappointment. 

It is as if we have come to believe it is more spiritual to deny pain than acknowledge it. But is that what Paul meant when he said rejoice in the Lord always? Did Paul have in mind that followers of Christ live as shiny, happy people who pretend nothing gets to them? 

I don’t believe so. Paul was no stranger to hardship, and he admitted himself that he despaired nearly to the point of death. He prayed multiple times that his “thorn in the flesh” as he called it, would be removed from him. He wasn’t happy about it. 

But Paul came to experience something in the midst of suffering that had him conclude, “but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

This is why Paul could tell the Philippians, and indeed us, to rejoice always. Suffering is a process. But it’s only a process when we process it. When we learn from it. When we let it have it’s intended effect. But we tend to be so impatient. We are so quick to want to resolve it any means possible. All too often, we circumvent the process and convince ourselves we’re ok. 

The truth is, we deny pain and bury it deep, deep inside us. We claim to have forgiven. We claim to have repented. We claim we have recovered when in reality we’ve simply painted over the rot like a bad landlord. Eventually, it will catch up with us – in bitterness, anger, immorality, or worse. 

DARK CLOUDS, DEEP MERCY

But there is a means presented over and over again in the bible to prevent this. It is called lament. I commend you to the book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop if this sermon resonates with you as it does with me. I cannot in 45 minutes unpack what Mark, a subject matter expert, does in 200 pages. But I would like to overview a few important concepts. 

First, what is lament? Last week I told you lament is not hopeless grief. Instead, lament, as Vroegop defines it, is “a prayer of pain that leads to trust.” Lament is inherently faithful because its very essence is crying out to God. 

Lament, biblically speaking, is directed not to the universe or great nothingness, but to the personal God who made you, loves you, called you to be His own, adopted you into His family, and sent His own Son to die for you. 

Secondly, what do we lament? In the bible we see examples of people lamenting their enemy’s victory, their agony, their loss, their sin, the faithlessness of the nation, the loss of a loved one, the seeming absence of the Lord’s favor, injustices and much more. 

There are lots of reasons we feel deep pain and lament helps us process that pain in a healthy way. Lament isn’t about venting or simply feeling better. It’s about bringing our pain into God’s presence so He can transform us through it. It is retraining your mind to think rightly and your heart to feel rightly. 

As we turn now to the heart of lament, I owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Vroegop for his work in synthesizing biblical lament in his book and for clearly identifying four steps of biblical lament. 

SEEK THE LORD

Verse 1a Save, O Lord… 

This is our first point today. In lament, we seek the Lord. It might seem obvious, but let’s state the obvious. When we lament, we direct our lamentation to Him. We enter His presence in our darkest hour for His help. In the words of Hebrews, we “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

We are acting faithfully when we lament because we are taking God at His word to bring ourselves into His presence humbly and presenting our requests to Him expecting to find His mercy. 

PRESENT OUR CARES/ANXIETIES/COMPLAINTS

Verse 1b-2 …for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. 2 Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. 

The second thing we do is tell the Lord what we’re dealing with. We tell the Lord how it feels, even if we know how it feels isn’t how it actually is. Mark described a moment when he and his wife, Sarah, were at the doctor’s office for a pregnancy check-up. Having experienced the tragedy of still birth and a couple miscarriages already, they were once again devastated – a blighted ovum, a false positive pregnancy. In the car before they went in she prayed one line, “Lord, I know you are not mean, but it feels like you are today.” 

In your theology, is there room for such honesty? The bible demonstrates there is. Sixty-five psalms and a book called Lamentations are filled with that kind of faithful honesty. 

The Lord can handle when His children cry out in pain and suffering and say what they really feel. This is not the same as venting to God; it’s not shaking an angry fist at Him. But when David asks in Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” Psalm 13:1 

He saying the same thing Sarah said, “…it feels like you are [mean] today.”  

When we come into God’s presence not presenting our strength to Him, but our cares, anxieties, and complaints, we are once again taking God at His word. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7

While it might feel like we are honoring the Lord by sucking it up and driving on, never complaining, never letting on that we’re at all disappointed or hurt, putting on a brave face, the reality is we are denying the truth and denying the opportunity to enter into real humble fellowship with the Lord. 

Denial is one of the ditches we are prone to fall into as we walk the road of hardship. Denial circumvents the next step because without acceptance of the hurt, there is rarely a request for help. 

PRAY SHAMELESSLY BOLD PRAYERS

Verses 3-5 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, 4 those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?” 5 “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

Once we enter God’s presence and present our anxieties to him in real, unfiltered, honest ways, we are invited to pray shamelessly bold prayers. I didn’t make that term up. I get that from Jesus, Himself. 

Some of you will recall that several years ago I preached through the gospel of Luke. In Luke 11 Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. And in that teaching he spoke in a parable. A man had midnight guests, and he went to his neighbor and roused him from his sleep asking for bread. Jesus said, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.” Luke 11:8

That word impudence is also translated “shameless boldness.” Jesus taught His disciples to pray shamelessly bold prayers. And if you read the psalms, you’re going to find David and Asaph and others doing this very thing. 

“Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies!” Psalm 69:17-18

In our lament, we are not gauging the feasibility, nor are we setting parameters for God. We’re praying what is on our hearts and minds. We’re asking the Lord to act, according to His character, to right the wrong, heal the wound, provide the need, relieve the pain. 

We pray shamelessly bold prayer and we trust Him with the results. 

TRUST THE LORD WITH THE RESULTS

Verses 6-7 The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. 7 You, O Lord, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever. On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

Lament affords us the opportunity to pray for things we have no ability to control and therefore no responsibility to effect. Thus, when we lament, we submit ourselves to the One who has both ability and responsibility. 

We are free to ask without bounds because ultimately it will be the Lord who acts according to His holy and perfect character. Jesus told us to pray according to His name, according to His character. We can ask for bold things because our God is a bold, powerful God. If we ask for things, even in our moments of deep passion, we should only expect that God is going to act according to His perfect will, not ours. There is great safety in that promise. 

As we pray shamelessly bold prayers, we can rest assured of a few critical truths: 

1. God is present

2. God cares

3. God always acts in your best interest and for His glory 

And there is only one verse necessary to justify all three truths: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 

PREACH THESE TO YOURSELF DAILY

Even when we do not feel His presence, we can know from this verse that He is near. Even when we wonder if He cares, we can remind ourselves the truth of scripture, “…He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 And even when we wonder why He is allowing certain things to happen, we know that “…for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

When we have preached these things to ourselves over and over again, we can conclude with the psalmist in Psalm 77: 

“I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?” Psalm 77:11-13

What brought the psalmist to a place of hope-filled worship in the midst of his darkness was not his mental toughness, but his remembrance of the mighty deeds of the Lord.

THE GREATEST WORK OF GOD

In that psalm, the author appealed to the parting of the waters of the Red Sea as he thought about God’s gracious and guiding presence. You and I, as Vroegop so beautifully points out in his book, need look no further than the cross of Christ to both see and to know the love of God made manifest in the greatest work of God ever known. 

Whenever we face times of darkness, times of despair, times of grief, loneliness, betrayal, loss, disappointment, heartache, frustration – whether it be with the sins of others or our own sins, whenever we find ourselves in dark clouds, let us turn to the Lord’s deep mercy. And let’s plant the stake of the cross of Christ in the ground as an ever-present and constant reminder of the God who has called us His own and the price He paid to make it possible.   

Some of you don’t need another Bible verse today. You know the verses. What you need is permission to bring your broken heart to the God those verses reveal. He invites you to bring them.