Thank you, and thank you, Pastor Andrew. Wherever you are, it is such a gift of God's grace to me that I get to preach this weekend. I'm so thankful for this opportunity, and I'm so excited to see what God is going to do through a thousand of you guys at Kids Week. When I was the campus pastor of the High Point campus, shout out to the campus that my family loves. If we at the Ridge will be quiet for a moment, maybe we can hear them.
Down Eastchester. There it is. All right. When I was campus pastor at the High Point campus, I got to see firsthand just how much of a needle mover Kids Week is in the lives, can be in the lives of so many kids and parents and their families. And if you have not signed up yet to serve, I hope you'll do that this weekend, okay?
Hey, thank you for sending our family and the rest of our launch team to plant Declaration Church in a place that we believe is strategic. Bowies Creek, North Carolina, at Campbell University. My family first visited there almost three years ago, and this was a picture from our first visit. Leland over there on the right, Josie on the left, Cohen's holding down the fort there in the middle. Then, about three years ago, he was about as wide as he was tall.
And um And what started as a visit that day with us asking the Lord, God, maybe this is where you're calling us to plant. By his grace, that picture is now this picture. This is our latest picture of our launch team. And yeah, y'all can praise God for that. We're so thankful.
And I say that's the latest picture of our launch team. That's a good chunk of our launch team because between adults and kids and Campbell students who have all said yes to being part of Starting Declaration, our launch team is up to 80 people so far. And we're so thankful for that.
So thankful for that. And there's room for more. All right, there's room for more. Bowies Creek is about an hour and a half from here, so not too far. 50,000 people are moving to that part of North Carolina, Harnett County.
So with tens of thousands of people literally moving there, that means there's a lot of new houses to choose from. Everybody, every family on our launch team who's buying a house down there, every family but one is in a new build down there, including my family.
So that gives you a feel for the growth that's happening down there.
So if you have a heart for college students, a heart for young families, many of whom statistically do not follow Jesus, who are moving there, if you have some maybe some flexibility in your job or you can get a job in the Raleigh or Fayetteville areas, I hope you will consider applying for the launch team. This QR code will take you to kind of Grand Central Station for all things declaration. It has the launch Team application. It also has a place where you can sign up to get our monthly email. I promise I will not flood your inbox too much.
So you won't flood it too much. We want you to be looped in on how you can be praying for what God is up to in and through our church. Our giving page is there. If you don't follow us on social media, you can do that through there as well.
So I invite you and hope you'll scan that and do those things. I want you to take your copy of God's Word and go with me to Psalm 13. Psalm 13, the billy goat tavern. is a chain of taverns in Chicago. In 1945, the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers played in the World Series, and Game 4 was there in Chicago at Wrigley Field.
And during Game Four, The owner of the tavern brought his pet goat to the game. The goat was kind of the mascot of the tavern. And the story goes that the owner of the Cubs, his last name was Wrigley. He was the namesake of the field. I think he was actually a bubblegum or a chewing gum, like big business guru.
There's your free fact for today. The story goes that Mr. Wrigley made them leave. because the goat smelled bad. Legend says the owner of the tavern responded by cursing the cubs.
declaring they would never win. Another World Series. And that year, the World Series went to seven games. And in the seventh game, the Cubs lost to the Tigers, and they did not win again. They did not win the World Series for another seventy one years until twenty sixteen.
And when they won, In 2016, there were lots of fans who were kids when The Curse of the Billy Goat. Became a thing, and that's what it's been called up there in Chicago. And when news outlets interviewed those fans who could remember that, they talked about how long they had waited. for the Cubs to finally win. Again.
What are you waiting? for God to do today. Are you in the adoption process? And you've done all the studies and the paperwork, and you've raised. Raise all the money.
Folks have been generous to support you guys in this. But are you waiting to get matched? Are you in? The foster licensing process, and it seems like there's just so many things, so many hoops to go through with maybe the state in order to get licensed, and that's starting to wear on you. Are you waiting on God to give you a biological child?
Are you waiting on God to give you a spouse? If you are married, are you waiting on your spouse to come with you to counseling? Are you waiting on a child to return to the Lord? Have you been promised a promotion at work maybe months ago and you're waiting on there to be movement toward that? Are you waiting on healing?
Are you waiting for relief? Are you waiting for some kind of movement and something that you've been asking the Lord to do? One family on our launch team is still waiting on a buyer for their house, and a couple of folks are still waiting for a job in Harnett County. If you find yourself waiting on God today, I believe Psalm 13 has your thumbprint on it. Let's read it in its entirety, and then we'll unpack it.
and apply it. Psalm 13 beginning in verse 1. 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 enemy 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 is dealt with. bountifully with me. Mercy Hill, this is God's word. Pray with me for a moment. Father, thank you for your word.
It is The living word of the living God. Father, we're so blessed to be able to open it in your presence. Thank you for what we felt, for how you've moved in our midst so far as we've lifted. Our praise to you in song, and right now, as we continue to worship you. as we spend time in your word.
I pray you would give us the ears to hear what it is you want to say to us this day. For our good And for your glory, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 13 is what's called a psalm of lament. A psalm of lament.
And no, that's not French for altoid, okay?
Some of you, that's going to hit. On your way home today. It's not French for altoid. One pastor has said: lament is a prayer in pain. that leads to trust.
Another has said it's when we sing the blues to God. Here's kind of my working definition of it. You can chalk it up to the big idea. Lament is crying out to God. while you cling to him.
It's crying out to God while you cling. To him, maybe not literally crying, unless you're a crier like I am, and sometimes you just got to open up and let her fly. What I mean is pouring out your heart. To the Lord. What's the very first thing that most of us ever did when we were born?
You can answer them. We cried. Very first thing most of us ever did outside the womb was cry. And by the time we're five, six, or seven, we've generally developed enough emotional guardrails and coping skills and language so that we no longer. feel the need to cry over absolutely every Inconvenience.
And I say generally because a few weeks ago at a Mexican restaurant, we saw a girl, probably in her late teens, early 20s, cry. because her food did not look like it did in the menu. And if that's you, we're glad you're here today. If you. If If you did not pay your bill that day, I also know of a church plant that could use a donation.
Okay, so there you go.
So, yes, while it is good and right. For us to not cry over every inconvenience, for those of us who follow Jesus, you and I can carry what is mature socially into our relationship with God so much so that sometimes we can forget he wants us to pour out our hearts to him. And instead of doing spiritually what is instinctive physically, we get too big for our britches and relate to God more as a busy executive that we got to schedule time with and we got to try to impress more than the father he is who wants to spend time with his kids. Think about the social media age that we live in. We put out only what we want to be heard and seen.
We only put out the best version of ourselves. And it's so easy. It's so easy to do the same with God. But thankfully, we have Psalm 13 that leaves no room. for that sort of thing.
Now, unlike a lot of the Psalms that David wrote that we know the backstory to, we don't know the backstory to this one. And I believe that's intentional. Because anyone who knows anything about waiting on God can apply it to their lives, which is the beauty of God's word, especially the Psalms. I've heard it said that the Bible speaks to us. And the Psalms specifically speak for us.
They give us language for every season and experience of our lives. They give us entry points for prayer. They shape our hearts. And when we, like we've sung about this morning, when we're prone to wonder, when we're prone to leave the God we love, the Psalms keep us anchored in the living God. They help us keep our lives centered on Him by giving us words and images that just seem to click with our souls.
150 Psalms, which were songs for the nation of Israel. It's the original hymn book of the nation of Israel, if you will. Out of 150 psalms, over a third of them are or lament. Lament is crying out to God while you cling to God. to him.
A couple of things about that that I want to hand you this morning. Number one is this. the one who is trustworthy with our eternity. is worthy of our honesty. The one who's trustworthy of your eternity.
Is worthy of your honesty. In verse 3, David was ready to throw in the towel. He felt like he was going to die. And then in verse 5, he thanks God for his salvation. And so, I think we're safe to connect those dots and infer that David was fine about his eternity.
And really, that's pretty easy for us as well, at least objectively, because eternity is so abstract, it can be so abstract compared to the day-to-day of our lives. What this Psalm shows us is the one who is trustworthy with our eternity is worthy of our honesty. Another way of saying it is this: the same God who holds our future can handle our feelings. The same God. who does that, can handle our feelings not once.
Not twice, not even three times, but four times. What does David cry out in the first couple verses? How what? How long? Look at it again.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? It 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. Be exalted over me. On Monday for Memorial Day, we went down to Lake Norman. And on the hour and a half drive from our house in High Point down to the lake, our oldest son Leland from the back seat asked what felt like no less than 37 times, what do you think? How much longer Until we get there.
And that's what David does here. That's what David does here. To the Lord. Again, we don't know the backstory, but he was clearly impatient. But see, unlike me, As much as I love my kids, Unlike me, David asking the same question, watch this, did not get on God's nerves.
The fact that he would ask him that over and over was actually an indication that he trusted him. We can tend to think that saying things like this to God shows our faith. That if we actually say out loud what it is we're thinking and feeling, that that means we don't believe God. But really the opposite is true. Honesty with God shows evidence of our faith, not the absence of it.
Had God literally forsaken David? You can answer me. No. Had he literally forgotten David? No.
And David knew that. If you're a student of God's word, you're probably familiar with Psalm 139. In that song, in that psalm, David said this: Where shall I go from your spirit? He's talking to the Lord, Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and even there your right hand shall hold me. We can believe those things. But would you agree with me sometimes we don't feel those things? You might know, you might believe that God has called your family to adoption. But the longer it takes for you to get matched, the more impatient you're getting.
You might know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you and your spouse made a lifelong commitment to each other. But the longer it takes, it's taking your husband or your wife to go with you to counseling, the greater the temptation there is to maybe throw in the towel. You know that where you work is part of the mission field that God has given you. But um The promotion that was promised months ago, and there being no movement on that. You're getting to the point where you're done.
And you might even know in your bones that God has called you to plant a church in a place that a lot of people had ever even heard of. All right? You know that. You know that. But sometimes the enemy can whisper into the ear of your heart: this thing isn't going to work.
And you start to feel some fear and angst. About Man, is this thing going to actually work? We can feel those things. We believe those things, but sometimes we don't feel those things. And here's the point.
Here's the point, God wants you to bring those things to him. He wants your raw, unfiltered emotions. He's not put off by them. There's not one thing. There's not one thing that you can think or feel or say that's going to make God blush and make him uncomfortable.
David came to him with the full gamut of what he was feeling. Y'all come close to me on this. God ain't interested in your spiritual avatar. He wants the real you. The real messed up emotional you.
Well, Travis, why is that? Doesn't God know everything already? Why does it matter if I tell him how I feel? It's because God is a good father who wants you to tell him how you're feeling because he knows that the more you talk to him about it, the closer you two are going to get. And that's what you and I were made for: to be in relationship with God, for the real you, for the real me, to be in relationship with him.
with the living God. When a lady named Charlotte Elliott was only 32, she got seriously sick. Was bedridden, disabled for the rest of her life. And several years later, when she was alone, Alone one afternoon in a bad place, in a bad place emotionally, the Holy Spirit moved her to write what became one of the most famous hymns of the church. And one of the verses says this, just as I am.
Though tossed about, with many a conflict. Many a doubt. Fightings and fears within without O Lamb of God, I come. I come. We can come to him.
just as we are. The one who is trustworthy with your eternity is worthy of your honesty. Number two is this: honesty with God should lead to deeper trust. in him. At the lake on Monday, we did the tubing thing.
And at first, Leland wasn't gung-ho about it. He can, like his dad, he can tend to get in his head about any and everything. And he wasn't loving the thought of being dragged around by what seemed to him to be, you know, a string connecting the tube to the boat. And he didn't love the idea of being tossed into the water, even though he had a life jacket on, and even though he's a better swimmer, then he realizes when we got on the tube and started being pulled, he started. kind of tensing up.
grabbed me harder. You know what it's like when you could look in somebody's eyes and tell that they're just about to start crying. That was starting to happen in his little eyes. And I said, dude, we got this. You got this.
You can do hard things. It's going to be fine. You're going to laugh. You're going to get wet a little bit, but it's going to be a blast. And I was able to psych him up some and hype him up, and he enjoyed it.
He enjoyed it, had the time of his life out there on the water.
Now, I don't think. As maybe introspective as he can be, I don't think Leland consciously thought, well, my dad drove us here safely for the past hour and a half, so I can trust him on this float. But After seven years of being my son, he's developed some trust in me. And if he could trust me with his feelings, then he could trust me on that float. The same The same should be true of us with God.
Honesty with him, being his child, in which we pour out our hearts to him, that should lead to deeper trust. In him. First of all, I want you to see that in what David requested. See it in what he requested. Look at verse 3 again.
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. Did you pick up on the change from verse one to verse three? If you have your Bibles open, look at verse one again. What does it say?
How long, oh, what? Lord. Then what does he say in verse three? Consider and answer me, O Lord. What?
My God. Say my God. I don't know this for certain. But in literally reading between the lines, between verses 2 and 3, it's like there was a shift in David's spirit in which he still may have had questions and emotions that were all over the place. But underneath those things, he knew that God was his God.
So much so that it shaped what he requested. In verse 3, he said, Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. Take out my enemies. Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. Make my circumstances easier.
No, what does he say? Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. What? Light up my. Eyes.
If you're taking notes, jot this down. More than comfort. David prayed for clarity. More than provision, he prayed for perspective. He felt like God had hidden his face.
And so he wanted to see him. In the last battle of the Roman Civil War, Julius Caesar told his men to stop fighting to hopefully lure his enemies down into battle where they were up on higher ground. And when that didn't work, he ordered a frontal attack, which almost proved fatal because they nearly lost the battle trying to fight uphill. The story goes that what turned the tide was that Caesar not only joined his men in battle, but some say he even took off his helmet so that his men would recognize him. And that's what David was praying for here.
He wanted to see God. He wanted to recognize God in the battle with him. And that's because when we see God, nothing else matters. When the eyes of our heart are on the living God, we can throw caution to the wind. We can live with courage in the face of our enemies.
We can live on the edgy side of wives. We can storm hell with a water pistol. Think about Peter and Jesus out on the lake in the storm, if you're familiar with that encounter. What was Peter only able to do as he kept his eyes on Jesus? Walk on.
Walk on the water. What happened when he took his eyes off Jesus and put his focus on the wind? He sank. He sank. David prayed, Lord, let me see.
Yeah. What are you wanting to see today? What are you looking for today? Again, is it comfort? Is it relief?
Is it peace? Is it some kind of movement in your life? Those things are not bad. They're not wrong. And what I'm about to say, do not hear me say that you should not pray for these things.
Because in the Lord's Prayer, if you're familiar with that, the model prayer that Jesus gave His disciples and therefore gives to us, in the middle of the model prayer, what does He say to pray for? Daily what? Daily bread. But see, right before that, he said, pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. What?
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth. as it is in heaven. That's about perspective. That's about clarity.
That's about surrendering ourselves to God's agenda, to God's mission and purposes. And daily bread is about provision toward that end.
So, as you pray for daily bread kinds of things, also pray, kingdom come kinds of prayers. Also, pray, Lord, light up my eyes. Kinds of things. As you pray for provision, pray in line with God's purposes. As you pray for blessings, pray for boldness.
As you pray for comfort. Pray for courage. In a few days, we're moving out of our house in High Point. And unless my parents slash our tires, we're taking. Their grandkids, an hour and a half.
Down the road. My wife Molly is I spent the past couple of weeks saying goodbye to some of the best friends that she's made here in the triad. I'm going to miss being in the office every day with with some of my best friends. And when I think about those things and get in my feels. about those things.
Sometimes the only thing that I want to pray for is comfort. and peace. But Psalm 13, when David said, Lord, light up my eyes, that's just gripped me the past couple weeks. Because, yes, God wants me to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me. He wants me to ask Him for comfort, but He also wants me to pray those kinds of things, not just for comfort, but for courage.
That, yes, I can pray for a smooth move and transition and all those things, but also praying, God, would you do incredibly more than we could ask or think in and through my little family, in and through our launch team. Yes, we can pray for daily bread, but let's also pray kingdom come kinds of prayers. Honesty with God should lead to deeper trust in him.
So see that in what David requested. Secondly, see it in what David renewed. Look at verse five. But I have trusted. in your steadfast love.
My heart shall rejoice. in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord. Because he is dealt bountifully with me. Say bountifully.
Man, that's a good word today. In other words, David renewed his trust in the Lord. He stood once again on the truths of God's love. and salvation. He knew those things.
He knew those things, but in that moment, his soul needed to know them again. And so he dug his heels deeper into the promises of God.
Sometimes, sometimes we need to renew ourselves on what we already know.
Sometimes we got to do that. We're so quick to forget. It's why all throughout the Psalms, David talks to himself. He says, oh my soul, bless the Lord, oh my soul. Paul David Tripp says, no one talks to you more than you do.
Here, David declares those things to God in a way. that reminds himself of the truths that he could cling to. And in doing so, he moves from, watch this, he moves from complaint. to confidence. He moves from impatience to to dependence.
He moves from protest. to the promises of God. He moves from how long, O Lord, to God, you have dealt bountifully. With me. I trust you.
That's the goal of lament. You can still have questions, but lamenting brings you closer to the one who has all the answers. David asked, how long, oh Lord, how long, oh Lord? How long, oh Lord? Four times, how long, oh Lord.
And then a few lyrics later, he said, God, you love me. You're for me. You have saved me. You have dealt bountifully with me. Of all his brothers, God had chosen him to be king.
And back then, the youngest The youngest wasn't chosen like that. He was the youngest. He was chosen to be king, he was the smallest. And I feel that this weekend because this pulpit is almost as tall as me, and Pastor Andrew is a lot taller than me. David was the The smallest, the youngest.
God had saved his life. From a bear and from the jealous king Saul. Multiple times. God had helped David take out Goliath with one small stone. God had redeemed David's sin with Bathsheba.
and still called him a man after his own heart. God had poured out his grace on David in abundance. And y'all, the same is true for us, only to an infinitely greater degree. And here's why. Ever since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, the world has been under a curse.
Not the curse of a billy goat. The curse of sin. We live in a world that's broken. Where there's sadness, There's sickness. Sexual brokenness.
sexual confusion, injustice. Pain. Death It's like what Mr. Tumnis told Lucy about Narnia. It's always winter, but never Christmas.
In a thousand years after David wrote Psalm thirteen. The perfect Son of God in the person of the Lord Jesus, who was David's great-grandson some 28 times over, lived the perfect sinless life that you and I could not live. And on the cross, he took the curse of sin in himself. In fact, David's questions, David's questions at the beginning of Psalm 13, centuries later, they echoed on a Friday afternoon outside the walls of Jerusalem on a hillside when Jesus pushed up on his nail-pierced feet and cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? See what David felt emotionally.
Jesus experienced fully That's because God cannot be near sin. And in that moment, The Bible says that Jesus literally became Sin. That he died the death. That we deserve to die. And three days later, he defeated the greatest giant of sin and death when he rose from the dead to give us life because only a living savior can do that.
And one day he's coming back to make everything sad become untrue once and for all. That's the gospel. It's the good news of what Jesus has done and will do. And when your faith is in that, When your faith is in the good news of Jesus. In the midst of your questions and emotions being all over the board, you can say with David.
God, I've 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. If you can't say those things, If you can't pray those things like David did. Then I pray that this day, this morning, Would be Would be your moment. To simply lean your God-given faith, to lean your confidence.
for yourself. on what Jesus has done for you. A B C admit to God that you need him? That apart from him you were a sinner? B, believe that what Jesus did on the cross and in his resurrection counted for you.
He did those things for you. Believe that they were enough to save you. C, confess. that he's the Lord of your life. That doesn't mean you're going to live perfectly from here on out.
It means that from here on out, Jesus calls the shots. You're putting your life in submission. To his I pray that this day. would be your day. to follow Jesus.
By grace alone, through faith alone. As far as we know, For David, nothing was actually resolved in the span of writing this psalm. Did you catch that? As far as we know, nothing was resolved. But he cried out to God.
He poured out his heart. to him. And sometimes that's all God wants us to do. And sometimes that's all that we can do. I said a a few moments ago and In a few days, we move out of our house.
in high point Uh Let me say this, if you're looking to buy a resale, No, our house is under contract, praise the Lord. Let me say this: if you're looking to buy, A resale, and you're thinking, I don't want to spend a few extra hundred dollars to do the survey, do the survey. All right? Because here's why. I'll spare you all the context and all the backstory, but we found out.
a few weeks ago that the The entire left side of our yard from the fence. at our, you know, between us and our neighbors. To literally up to our house. We found out the entire left side of our yard. is in the name.
was in the name of not one but two owners ago. I don't even understand how that's possible. Apparently, the ones that we bought the house from, they didn't have a survey done either. And uh for uh For a couple weeks, tried getting in touch with them. It was at the time, years ago, 10, 15 years ago, as a husband and wife.
Since then, they've gotten divorced. A week and a half-ish ago, the wife signed. And the husband was he was ignoring calls from attorneys and I even tried to get in touch with him. And we were starting to get in our feels about how this might shake out. And then, about a week and a half ago, on a Wednesday morning, he texted me.
asked me to call him. And I did. And he said, I don't know you. Do you have a family? I said I did, and I told him about our family.
And then he asked this. He asked, are you a believer? And I said, I am. In fact, we're planting a church, and most of the time I explain the location this way because no one has ever heard of Bowies Creek. I said we're planting a church in Bowies Creek, North Carolina, down below Raleigh where Campbell University is.
And he said this. I live five minutes from there. And so now we have our 81st launch team member, okay? No, no, that's a joke. We do pray, he comes, we do pray comes, okay?
But literally, hey, literally. for the next 50 minutes. He poured his heart out to me. I guess he just needed. A set of ears.
And maybe he in I guess he just needed He just needed a pastor. to talk to. And praise the Lord, he signed. All that's been resolved.
So. We're thankful for that. But What I did Frankly. What I did reluctantly. for him.
God is ready to do joyfully. for you today. He's not annoyed. By the same question. over and over from the back seat.
He wants to hear from you. He's ready. for you to pour your heart Out to him. He's a good father. Who is for you?
In a moment we're going to sing two songs. And during the first song, the invitation is this. Cry out to God. If you need to put your body in a posture for your heart to follow, the altar is open. Prayer teams are going to be down front if you want somebody to pray with you.
If you just need to pour it out before the Lord. God is ready. He is joyfully ready. to hear you. For you to cry out to him, leave your spiritual avatar in your seat.
and bring the real you to the real God who is for you. That's the first Psalm. The second song will We'll shift and and turn our hearts to the Lord in praise. That's how the psalm ended, and that's how we're going to end. But right now, we're going to begin this time.
crying out to the Lord? What are you waiting on God? To do today. Pour your heart out to him about that. Father, thank you.
For your word. God, I'm thankful, even in the moments of getting to preach it, Father, I'm thankful. or for how your spirit just hits me with things from your word. God, I'm thankful that you are for us. We even got to read that That verse was read over us earlier, and I'm thankful for that reminder.
And I pray for the next few moments. That your spirit would make that so real to us. That you are for us. As we think about the cross, and the empty tomb that those things would be like a magnet for us. to cry out to you.
to bring the real us to you. During this time, Father, would you work in each of our lives across all of our campuses? For our good. and for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. Mm.
