The Christians who please God more in their suffering
“I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.” (Psalms 69:30-31)
I am sure no one in this world has never suffered hurt or pain in human relationships. And I am sure everyone has experienced stresses and worries in that relationships. In particular, the hard and stressful human relations are a relationship where someone hates us and we don’t understand why s/he hates us. And when s/he who hates us for no reason forms a group of people and hate us together, then we will go through extreme stress, anxiety and hurt. At that time we want to be comforted, but when no one comforts us, but rather turns their backs and go away from us, we experience extreme loneliness. Even when our family members we believed in and relied on turned their backs on us and kept us away from their hearts, then this painful situation causes us to be deeply hurt and be despaired as if we were in a deep pit. In this deep despair, can we think about pleasing God more? Can we sing a song of thanksgiving to God?
The suffering that the psalmist David of Psalms 69 was going through was a painful situation like "deep mire" and "deep waters" (v. 2). Why did David fall into such a deep mire and deep waters? The reason is because there were those who hated him without a cause were more than the hairs of his head (v. 4). Also, it was because his strong enemies tried to destroy David (v. 4). What troubled him more when he was in such extreme distress was that David became a stranger and an alien to his brothers (v. 8). David was lonely. Although David looked for sympathy and comforters, he found none (v. 20). But in the midst of those sufferings, David praised God and glorified Him with thanksgiving (v. 30). And he believed that this would please God more (v. 31). How could David praise God with thanksgiving in the midst of his severe sufferings? How can we, like David, please God more in the midst of our sufferings? I would like to learn the four lessons from Psalms 63:
First, we must pray to God in order to please God more in the midst of our sufferings.
Look at Psalms 69:13-14, 16-17: “But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. … Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.” If there are so many who hate us for no reason, and even the powerful people who seek our lives surround us, we can be full of extreme stress, fear, and suffering. At that time, our nature is at least to go to our family members who love us or our close friends because we want to be comforted by them. But when we can’t be comforted by even our family members or close friends whom we expected and fell that we are strangers to them, then we can feel very lonely. When we realize that no one can sympathize with and comfort our broken hearts and many worries (v. 20), then we can feel extreme loneliness. Only then do we realize that man is not the object to rely on, and finally we come to God and cry out to Him. The truth that we must realize at that time is that God accepts us (v. 13). In that situation where no one accepts us, we need to know more deeply that only God always accepts us. Then, even if we suffer in the future, we will not go to people first, but go to God first and we will cry out to Him on our knees. And when we pray to God, we should endure, expect, and wait for God's prayer answers in faith, as we long for God's many loving-kindnesses and truths of salvation in the midst of those who hate us are more than our hairs and in much suffering. God will surely save us (v. 1). The God of salvation will surely deliver us from the deep mire and from those who hate us (v. 14).
Second, we must confess our sins to God in order to please God more in the midst of our sufferings.
Look at Psalms 69:5 – “O God, it is You who knows my folly, And my wrongs are not hidden from You.” When many people who hate us for no reason, and even those powerful people who seek our lives, are threatening us, we will probably complain and blame before those whom we go to, whom we depend on, and expected to be comforted by them. And when we don’t actually depend on God and go to Him first and pray, then there is high probability that we go to the people around us and pour out our resentment and complaints. But if we first go to God and pray, then our finger will be directed at ourselves rather than at those who hate us. That is, when we pray, we look back at ourselves before the holy God. Actually, our dark sins will be exposed by God's holy presence. In particular, when we pray to God, we first realize that it is “my folly” that we rely on people rather than on God (v. 5). The wise Christian never would. Not only that, but when we pray to God, we realize that our sins cannot be hidden before God. Therefore, we should pray and confess our foolishness and our sins to God. This is the blessing of suffering. Through suffering we realize that Heavenly Father is accepting us and thus we pray to God so that our hidden sins may be exposed by His holy presence and that we enjoy the blessing of confessing and repenting our sins to Him. Don’t we miss this blessing?
Third, our zeal for God’s house should consume us in order to please God more in the midst of our sufferings.
Look at Psalms 69:9 – “For zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” How is this possible? How can our zeal for the Lord’s church be burned in the midst of our sufferings? We can’t understand with our common sense. Usually when we suffer, we can't afford to think about even our family members except ourselves. Then how can we think about the church and love the church with burning zeal? When we pray to God in the midst of our sufferings, we love God more by confessing and repenting of our sins because of God's great love of accepting us. And we who love God cannot help but love the church of God. Then, like Apostle Paul, we are jealous for the church by God's zeal (2 Cor. 11:2). In David's case, he said that he was reproached and mocked by his enemies and those who hated him for the Lord’s sake (Ps. 69:7, 10, 12). That's why shame was covered his face (v. 7). In addition, David's enemies and many who hated him cursed and humiliated David, as well as those who hoped in the Lord and those who sought Him (v. 6). They insulted the Lord, whom David believed and served (v. 9). At that time, David's zeal burned for the Lord's house (v. 9). So should our hearts be. When many anti-Christians who hate us for no reason curse and mock us and insult and slander the Lord’s church, we must love the church even more. The more people who profane, slander, and oppose the church, the more we must love the church and be more zealous for it. When the church is persecuted and when we are in tribulation, our zeal for the Lord’s church should be burned more and more in our hearts. Like the words of the hymn “Faith of Our Fathers”, we must not only keep our faith in spite of dungeon, fire and sword, but we must also be faithful to the Lord and His church till death.
Fourth and last, we must praise God with thanksgiving in order to please God more in the midst of our sufferings.
Look at Psalms 69:30 – “I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.” God's grace is amazing because when God gives us grace, we want to please God rather than to please ourselves even in our afflictions and sufferings. This is the work of God. How does God make us to please Him? He does so by making us to praise Him with thanksgiving in the midst of suffering. Do you understand? How could David praise God with thanksgiving in the midst of extreme sufferings? This reminds me Psalms 63:3 – “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.” When David was running away his own son Absalom, he experienced God’s faithful love in the wilderness of Judah. So he praised the Lord as he considered the Judah wilderness as the sanctuary (v. 2). How can we praise God in the midst of our sufferings? We can do so by God who accepts us who are sufferings and answers us with His saving truth (69:13). We who love God by experiencing God's great loves (v. 36) are compelled to praise God for His saving love. Didn’t Paul and Silas do so in prison? They prayed and sang hymns to God about midnight (Acts 16:25). I also remember praising God as I experienced God's eternal love in great depth (Ps. 63:3). The Holy Spirit in me enabled me to sing “My Savior’s Love” (or “I Stand Amazed”) after my wife spread our first baby Charis’ ashes into the water and we were coming back to the land (http://youtu.be/nkFOtaO8B9c):
(v. 1) I stand amazed in the presence Of Jesus the Nazarene, And wonder
how He could love me, A sinner, condemned, unclean.
(v. 2) For me it was in the garden He prayed: “Not My will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs, But sweat drops of blood for mine.
(v. 3) In pity angels beheld Him, And came from the world of light To
comfort Him in the sorrows He bore for my soul that night.
(v. 4) He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own; He
bore the burden to Calvary, And suffered and died alone.
(v. 5) When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see, ‘Twill be
my joy through the ages To sing of His love for me.
(chorus) O how marvelous! O how wonderful! And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful! Is my Savior's love for me!