Pastor Tim Patoka 5th Sunday in Lent
The Struggle: Psalms for Lent March 21, 2021 The Lord’s Help in Our Relentless Struggles Psalm 143:1-12
1) Our Relentless Struggles Bring Us Unrelenting Hardships 2) Christians Confidently Turn to the Lord for Help 3) We Face Our Relentless Struggles as the Lord’s Servant Everybody has their share of struggles that just won’t go away no matter how hard you try. There is the relentless struggle of keeping the house clean from the piles and messes that daily accumulate. No matter how many times or how well we clean the house, we’re going to need to do it again. There’s the relentless struggle of getting to wherever we’re going without too much traffic or construction delay. Maybe it’s just me, but just when it seems that you’ve found that sweet spot, something changes and you need to find a new one. Depending on the people around you, you may also have the relentless struggle of needing to bite your tongue around that certain someone! Because you that, if you were to speak your mind, it would only make the struggle worse. The thing about relentless struggles is that they don’t go away. They are always there and can, little by little, easily wear us out. This is not only true for the minor struggles we face, but also for our major and more difficult struggles. As grim as it may sound, our lives are full of relentless struggles that continually wear us down. It’s because of that stark reality that we turn our attention this morning to Psalm 143. In it, we see how Old Testament believer King David describes his state due to his relentless struggles. Yet, because of our Lord and the help he gives, King David shows us how we can confidently turn to our Lord in our relentless struggles and face them as his forgiven and assured servant. 1) Our Relentless Struggles Bring Us Unrelenting Hardships While we know that King David wrote Psalm 143 and it is God’s inspired Word, there’s not much else we know about this psalm’s historical setting or what specifically drove King David to write these poetic words. But what is sure is how King David accurately describes how we often feel in the aftermath of our relentless struggles. One source of these struggles often comes from ourselves because of our sin-filled pasts. We hear David talk about this when he says, “Do not bring charges against your servant, because no one living can be righteous before you.” (Psalm 143:2 EHV) As you think back to King David’s life or later look him up at home, you can find a number of accounts where he was anything but righteous in God’s sight.
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