How to Pray When Life Seems Ruined
What we have in Psalm 79 this morning is a Psalm of lament. A Psalm written to express sorrow, helplessness, and a longing to be saved. The progression of this Psalm is straightforward: It begins with the problem in verses 1-4. What’s the cause of the sorrow? It moves on into a petition in verses 5-12. What’s asked of God in the midst of such sorrow? Then, closes in one final word of praise in verse 13.
Problem, petition, praise — that’s the shape of lament in Psalm 79.
Let’s pray and ask for the Lord’s help to understand it.
The Problem
So, what’s the problem in this Psalm?
What’s the cause of the sorrow of Psalm 79?
It’s basically this: The people of Jerusalem are looking around at their city seeing that everything that God had done here, the nations have now undone. Everything that God had built up here, the nations have now brought down. All the order God had put into place here, the nations have now put into disorder. In short: The nations have ruined Jerusalem — the city of God (Ps. 48:8).
How have they ruined it? Well, for one, they’ve defiled God’s holy Temple — the structure built within the city that served as their meeting place between God and man. Verse 1,
“O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy Temple.”
Defiled it. Polluted it. Made it unclean.
If you were here for our Leviticus series a while back, you might remember with what care and precision that holy Temple had been constructed — down to the specific type of materials, color of cloths, and style of engravings. Everything in its proper place, everything to show one main thing: God is Holy. That’s what a clean, kept, well-constructed Temple would signify.
A defiled Temple, on the other hand, would suggest otherwise. And, a defiled Temple would be an insufficient meeting place for God and man. God won’t dwell in a defiled Temple. That’s a problem. And the problem widens…
Verse 1 continues,
“They have laid Jerusalem in ruins.”
Jerusalem, a city that had been bound firmly together. A city to which the tribes of the LORD had gone up to pray, “Peace be within your walls and security within your towers” (Psalm 122). That city now lay in the dust.
“They have laid Jerusalem in ruins.”
Ruin People
And not only Jerusalem. The destruction encompassed sanctuary, city, and its citizens. Verse 2,
“They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.”
Genesis tells us that God made man in his image and that man was to rule over the birds and over the beasts. And that the creatures in the sky, on the ground, and in the water would become food for man to eat. That was God’s design. Not the other way around.
In the nations giving over “the bodies of [God’s] servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth” they created a grotesque reversal of God’s created order. A distortion of God’s design.
Note that the nations not only killed the majority of the people within Jerusalem, but they didn’t even care to bury the bodies afterward (v. 3). They left them out in the open to be seen, to be eaten, and to rot. With their blood poured out like water all round Jerusalem (v. 3), the death of God’s people would’ve been inescapable to any passerby. The corpses would’ve been there to greet you every time you stepped out your door.
This, in Jerusalem? In the land in which God had previously driven out these nations and apportioned for his people a possession? He drove the nations out to let his people in. But the nations have now come back in, killed many of the people, driven out others, and left only a few to remain and till the soil.
When Asaph says, verse 7, “[They’ve] devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation” it is not a stretch of the imagination. Jerusalem had been devoured. And the nations who did it were laughing about it.
Ruin Mockery
Verse 4,
“We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.”
Have you ever been mocked? Like not merely laughed at as when you drop something or say the wrong thing, but actually mocked? Ever had someone who saw that you were down and then wanted to put you down even further with words? What happens in moments of mockery?
Maybe your cheeks begin to redden in shame and embarrassment. Maybe your anger begins to stew and boil. Maybe you feel like you got some sort of sign hanging above your head reading, “Weak, failure, fool.” With the nations taunting, verse 10, “Where is their God?” perhaps you begin to wonder as well, “Yeah, where is my God?”
It’s a terrible thing to be mocked by an individual. Even more by a group. But what would it feel like to be mocked by an entire army’s worth of enemies as you look over your world that they’ve turned into wasteland?
The Petition
The truth is, none of us know exactly how that would’ve felt for the people of Israel. Their situation in Jerusalem is not the same as our own. And yet my guess is that nearly all of us here this morning know, at least in degrees, what ruin feels like: Ruin in the form of a break-up you’re not sure you’ll ever recover from; ruin in the form of the loss of a friendship that meant much to you; ruin in the form of a loved one suddenly passing away; ruin in the form of a life-threatening disease, or a life-altering disaster, or a broken home, or a broken car, or a broken body, or a broken mind. We may be somewhat strangers to the world of Psalm 79, but we are no strangers to ruin.
This Psalm teaches us how, in the midst of our ruin, to pray. And not only that. But it teaches us how to pray in the midst of our ruin, even ruin that we have caused. What do I mean by that? Well, look with me at the beginning of the petition, in verse 5,
“How long, O Lord?”
And then see what the petition doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “How long, O Lord? Will the nations be angry forever?” We’d expect it to say that. It was the nations who did all this, right? But the question in verse 5 does not concern the nations. Rather, it says,
“How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?”
And,
“Will your jealousy burn like fire?”
What is the Psalmist saying here? He’s saying that even though it was their enemies who had swung the axes, and broke the walls, and torched the buildings — it was ultimately not their anger, but God’s, pouring out upon them. And it was God’s jealousy burning within the gates. And why was it?
Many years before, prior to God’s driving out of the nations and apportioning for his people a possession Israel, he gave them a warning:
Deuteronomy 4:23-24,
“Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you…For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God”
Deuteronomy 5:9,
“You shall not bow down to [carved images] or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.”
Deuteronomy 6:14-15,
“You shall not go after other gods…for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God — lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you.”
You see, the ruin of Psalm 79 was not random. It was response. Response, from God, to decades upon decades of the Israelite’s unfaithfulness to God … decades upon decades of the Israelite’s idolatry. Though God had set up his Law, and warned them with prophets, and prolonged their opportunity for repentance, this people over and again chose not to worship God, but to worship gods made of wood, and stone, and steel instead. Finally, God held back his anger no longer. He poured it out upon them by means of an invading army. This ruin was God’s response to their rebellion.
And so, this Psalm teaches us how to pray to God in the midst of ruin, even the ruin that we brought upon ourselves through our own sin…
How to pray
Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of at least a few moments in my past where I felt like I had ruined my life. Or, the life of another. Or, both. A few moments where, because of my sin, my choosing to sin, ruin seemed all round me. And I can still taste the despair of those moments … still remember the regret, the guilt — so heavy, so thick, so seemingly inescapable. Can you really go to God in a moment like that? Can you really go to God when the reason for your ruin is your rebellion against God?
Yes, you can.
And, in fact, you must. And this Psalm shows us how. Three ways…
1) Pray according to God’s compassion.
Verse 8,
“Do not remember against us our former iniquities [our former sins], let your compassion come speedily to meet us.”
Our God is a God of compassion. A God who does good to those who don’t deserve it. Just as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (Psalm 103:13). Our Lord waits to be gracious to his people, and exalts himself to show mercy to them (Isaiah 30:18). He introduces himself to the world as a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6-7).
Our God is a God full of compassion. It is his nature. It is his character. He is compassionate. He is the very thing you, as a sinner, need him to be. So the Psalmist wastes no time making excuses. He doesn’t try to minimize sin, hide sin, or cast blame for sin upon another. The Psalmist simply prays, verse 8,
“Lord, you know our former iniquities. You know our former sins. Lord, remember them no longer. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us.”
He petitions God according to who God is, not according to what he himself deserves.
Brothers and sisters, we will not go to God in moments of self-made ruin if we do not trust, deep within our bones, that God is full of compassion for sinners. We must believe what he says about himself is true. He is a God merciful and gracious. Say to God, “Let your compassion come speedily to meet me.”
2) Pray assured of God’s covering.
So, first, pray according to God’s compassion. And, second, pray assured of God’s covering. The Psalmist prays, in the latter part of verse 9,
“Deliver us, and atone for our sins.”
“Atone” — it means cover over our sins. Do something about our sins. Put something over them so as to deal with the punishment they deserve.
He doesn’t tell God how he should do this, how he should atone for the sin, though the blood covered doorposts of the Passover and the blood covered altar at the Temple were likely in his mind. He doesn’t tell God how to atone for his sins, only that he needs him to be the one to do it because only God can atone for the sins of man.
Many of us agree to that statement, at least in word. But in action, we often find ourselves acting as if we didn’t believe it at all. We experience guilt and mess from a sin we’ve committed. We know we ought to go to God about it. But we instead attempt to clean things up just a bit ourselves. Do a few good deeds, say some good words, check off some good works, think some good thoughts — we attempt to take the edge off our sin and our sin-produced mess before we go to God with it. That, friends, is not Christianity.
Christianity clings to the truth that man cannot atone for his sins, not fully, nor even partially. He cannot even take the edge off of his sins. Only God can atone for our sins. And he does, for those who come to him empty-handed and asking him, “fix this.”
The psalmist looks at the ruin and mess all around him, he considers the mountain of sins behind him, and he says: God, you and you alone can fix this.
“Deliver us, and atone for our sins.”
3) Pray aware of God’s concern for his own glory.
Pray according to God’s compassion, and assured of God’s covering, and (third and finally) aware of God’s concern for his own glory.
Now, it is evident from Scripture, that God is, in fact, concerned for his glory. God wants his glory in this world. He cares that his name and his glory resound around the globe.
He says: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth… whom I created for my glory (Isaiah 43:6-7). I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory (Jeremiah 13:11). For my name’s sake (God says) I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise, I restrain it…For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another (Isaiah 48:9-11).
God is concerned for his own glory in this world. God’s aim in his making and upholding of this world is the spread and proclamation of his glory. His glory is his deepest passion, greatest concern, and highest priority. He wants his name held high — higher than all others.
“My glory [he says] I will not give to another.”
What that means, is that though God may, for a time, permit his glory to be drug through the mud, he will not do so for long. He will not sit back uncaring and unconcerned that his name is being mocked, taunted and scorned. He will have his glory known among the world as the waters cover the sea.
And the reason that matters is because here, in Psalm 79, his name is being mocked by the nations. Why should the nations say, verse 10 asks, “Where is their God?”
“Return sevenfold,” prays the psalmist in verse 12, “into the lap of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord!”
See the nations have not just taunted this people, they’ve taunted God. They’ve not only overpowered this people, but interpreted that to mean they’ve overpowered God. Their defeat of this people led them to believe they had defeated their God as well.
The Psalm gets at that even as far back as verses 1-4,
“O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy Temple…They have given the bodies of your servants…the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.”
Your, your, your, your … this place, this people — the psalmist is saying — they’re yours. The things that ultimately belong to you are the things the nations have ruined. It’s your name, O God, your glory that’s at stake here. And, as we said, God is concerned for his own glory in this world. His greatest passion is for the spread and proclamation of his glory.
Now, if you are a Christian this morning … if you have been united to Christ by faith … if you have confessed your sins to God and trusted in his forgiveness and grace, then God’s concern for his glory should be your greatest source of comfort amidst ruin. Because, if you are a Christian, then you are the possessor of God’s Spirit, the wearer of Christ’s righteousness, and the bearer of God’s name in this world. God has tied his name, and his glory, to you.
For him to abandon you, would be for him to abandon his glory. For him to forget you, would be for him to forget his glory. For him to turn his ear away from when you cry out to him for help would be for him to let his enemy get the final victory over your life, rather than him.
God’s concern for the glory of his name should bolster within you the deepest confidence that God will not leave you in ruin. For God to show concern for his glory is for him to pour out upon you, Christian: the greatest, most persistent, most-reliable, most-indomitable form of love the world has ever known. He is after his glory in this world, and he has tied his name, and his glory, irrevocably to you. He broadcasts his glory not by getting his people partway to the finish line but getting them all the way home. No matter the ruin you may find yourself in, no matter how deep the hole you seem to have dug yourself, no matter how far you’ve wandered, if you are Christ’s, God aims to get his glory in your life by getting you all the way home.
See, God has so designed his world that: When God welcomes you home in love, despite the fact that you’ve been a rebel; when he responds to your prayers of repentance despite the fact you don’t deserve it; when he atones for, covers over, your many repeated trespasses against him; when he, in his good time and in his wise way, pulls you out of the rubble of self-made ruin …
He does so with such compassion, and such perfection, and such love, and such justice, that far from belittling his glory, he actually broadcasts his glory throughout the world and throughout the heavens as he works for his peoples’ good.
God never rescues reluctantly. God loves, God loves, God loves to get his glory through the rescue of his people out of ruin. He loves it. And that is why one of the most important prayers you could ever learn as a Christian is Psalm 79:9,
“Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake!”
We get the help, God gets the glory. We get deliverance, God gets the praise. We rise in joy — our salvation has come. God receives his honor — his salvation is extolled around the world.
How great is it to be a Christian? … To serve a God who has so united himself to you that to defend his glory is to defend your eternal good? How great is it to be a Christian?
God, get your glory. God, raise high your name. God, be the Helper of your people!
Do you need his help this morning? Are you staring out at a life in ruins? Do you feel the guilt of sin upon your shoulders? Are you sitting in the muck and mire of defeat? Are you wondering if God would even hear you if you called to him? Does God even care that you are mourning? Is there any desire in God whatsoever to help?
Cities Church, in the midst of your ruin, take the words of verse 9 upon your lips:
“Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake!”
And if you do, you will praise him. If you call to him, you will praise him. His help may not come as speedily as you’d like. His help might not come in the way you would like. But if you call to him, you will praise him.
The Praise
Verse 13,
“But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.”
At the time of the psalmist’s prayer, the ruin was still around him. The walls were still broken. The Temple still defiled. Nothing visible had changed. But, he knows his God. His compassionate, cover-making, concerned for his own glory God. So he says, with confidence, I know how this trouble will end… “We your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.”
And so will we. Though our enemy bring us into what may appear, at first, to be our ruin … though our enemy break the walls, and tear down the doors and torch the buildings, God will return his taunt upon his own head. Your enemy cannot win because God has already atoned for your sins. He has already come to help. He has already delivered us for his name's sake! And he did so when he sent his son to pour out his blood upon a cross for sinners. This is what brings us to the table.
The Table
This table is meant to remind us of Jesus’ sacrificial body broken and blood spilled to atone, to cover over, the sins of his people. Because that’s what this table represents, if you’re here this morning and you’ve trusted in Jesus, we invite you to take and eat with us. If you’ve not put your trust in Jesus, we ask that you’d let the elements pass, but we pray you would, in this moment, receive Jesus, and his covering over you.
