Psalms 42–43

0:00 A few years ago, a lot of the country, at least the part that I was in, stopped, dawned on special glasses, and stared at the natural phenomenon of a solar eclipse, where the moon passes right between the earth and the sun, and the sun is blacked out for a few minutes. And one of the things that I thought was interesting about that was reading articles about how ancient cultures interpreted this event. So there were some cultures that thought it was this supernatural evil animal consuming the sun.

0:36 I don't know what they did when it came back, but that's what they thought it was. And others thought it was a sign of divine displeasure, an indication that you better get your act together or something bad is about to happen. And I think it's easy for us with our modern technology that can not only, you know, understand what's happening there, but predict it. You can go to Wikipedia and see the next hundred years of eclipses scheduled to the, like, millisecond, right? it's easy for us to write off those explanations. It's kind of silly, right? To think, how could people think something as natural and simple as the moon sort of in its natural course passing between the earth and the sun?

1:13 How could they let that completely alter their understanding of reality? And yet, isn't that exactly the kind of thing we are prone to do as Christians when something unexpected comes in relationship to our life and relationship to God. Some unexpected circumstance comes into our lives and it obscures our view of God and everything we thought we knew about him is suddenly brought into question. Haven't you ever been tempted to wonder, to question your relationship with God when something didn't go your way?

1:47 When you think you deserve something and then she gets it instead? When you look at the world as a whole and think, what is going on? the bible assures us that that kind of logic that that kind of looking outward to understand god is always backwards rather than looking at the world to try to understand god's character we have to try to make sense of our circumstances in light of what we know to be true about god and yet even when we're anchored in that even we know what is true about god we're solid on that we can sometimes, and maybe even often, find ourselves in tension where God's character and our circumstances just aren't seeming to line up. Well, that's why the Psalms, and especially the Psalms of Lament, are so useful to us as his people. Because in them, we find God's inspired songs, his words, written by people in really difficult circumstances. They show us how to express ourselves appropriately, and ultimately how to reground ourselves in the sure and steady

2:51 foundation of our good and faithful God. And so we're going to do that this morning as we consider these psalms, Psalms 42 and 43. If you're using a pew Bible, it's on page 469. It's unusual to do more than one psalm. It sounds weird for us even to say it, but they share a common structure. And if you kind of just scan down, it's not set apart really cleanly, but you can see that it's really three sections, like three verses, with a chorus that's repeated in each one. And so it's really that repeated refrain that's kind of central to the message of the song and why most of the really smart people seem to think this is like one unit. And so we're going to consider it together this morning. And what I hope for us to see is that Christians must speak God's truth into their despair because God can and will save them. Christians must speak God's truth into their despair, because God can and will save them. So let's read these psalms together. Psalm 42,

3:52 to the choir master Amaskill of the sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me continually, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with a throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul?

4:34 and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mazar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls, all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, where is your God?

5:24 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people. From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth.

5:55 Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. And I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God. For I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. we hear the the chief concern of the psalmist repeated three times in that chorus why are you cast down oh my soul and why are you in turmoil within me this man is is cast down he is discouraged he is depressed he's troubled on the inside and we'll spend a good bit of our time this morning thinking about why that is but before we even jump in I want us to just stop and think about how a psalm like this hits us for some of us we read these words and it immediately has our attention, right? We hear that and we think, yeah, that's me. That's me. I'm struggling. I'm discouraged.

6:59 And I just want to say, if that's you, I am so thankful that you are here this morning. It may have been work. It may be a battle just for you to get here, but I'm glad that you're here. And I'm confident that a loving God has brought you here this morning to receive comfort and instruction from his word, to leave here this morning with a fresh hope in him. Now, maybe this doesn't describe your current experience, but it does talk about something that you've experienced at some point in your life. You've been through a time of despair, and now you're on the other side of it. And I trust if that's true for you, then the psalmist experience will resonate with you this morning, and you'll be able to worship as you make this confession with him. And then maybe for others of you, this psalm, this concept is just completely foreign, right? You've never experienced anything like this in your life. Maybe it's because you're just young, and you just haven't gotten there yet.

7:49 Maybe it's because you've had a relatively easy life, and you can be thankful for that. Maybe you're just hopelessly optimistic. I don't know. But if that's you, this psalm is for you too, and maybe especially for you. Because I think when you're in that third category and you get to a psalm like this, it's sort of like sitting on the airplane when they're giving you the instructions about how to put on your seatbelt and how to put on the oxygen mask and all that stuff. You just sort of tune it out, right? Nobody really pays attention to that. But it gets really tense, right, when there's turbulence on the flight. Right? When all of a sudden you wonder, oh, what am I supposed to do? What if the cabin loses pressure and the oxygen masks drop down? What if we have to make a water landing? What am I supposed to grab onto? Right? Listening to those instructions could save your life. And brothers and sisters, I want you to hear this this morning. Your ability to appropriate the truth of this psalm could be a matter of spiritual life and death. Now, I don't mean in saying that to raise doubts about the sovereignty of God and salvation, but I think one of the means that God uses to

8:50 sustain and to change his people is our own internal dialogue, our ability to speak the truth to ourselves and the words of hope and encouragement that we share with one another in the context of our community. And so these words will prepare you for a season like this in your life, even if you haven't gotten there yet. It can be sort of like military training, right? You think about the different standards that the different branches of the military have. Well, the goal isn't just arbitrary. How many push-ups can you do or how fast can you run from this place to that place? The goal is that you have the physical strength and endurance you need so that when your life is on the line or when your country is on the line, you can do it, right? You can do what it takes. You can get over the wall or you can get across the field or whatever it is. The time to test your strength is not the time of battle, right? You want your strength to be ready and proven at that point. And so the Psalms provide us spiritual training in worship so that we are equipped for the battle when it comes. But they do something else too. Remember, these are songs.

9:52 These are sung by the community in corporate worship. And so what they allow us to do is enter into the emotional and spiritual experiences of the people around us. And so maybe you're not in despair right now, but you're close to someone who is. And so these psalms are like God's gift to you to equip you to counsel, to minister, to love the people around you effectively with God's wisdom and grace. So this is a song about despair and hope. And I want us to look at three reasons for the psalmist's despair and then the answer of hope. So the structure will kind of follow that.

10:26 Three reasons for despair and the answer of hope. So first let's look at the psalmist's isolation. back to the beginning of 42. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? So he begins with an intense longing. This deer here is, think about a wild deer, you know, like an antelope in the desert or something. He's gone a long time without water, and he's desperate. He's driven to seek it out. The only thing he can do is plod along, take one step after the other to get water. Nothing else matters to him. And so the psalmist maybe is like sitting on the ledge of a mountain, looking out across the desert landscape, watching this and thinking, I'm like that deer. But I'm thirsty, I'm desperate. But for the psalmist, his longing is not just for living water, but for the living God. He says, when shall I come and appear before God?

11:32 Now, if we skip down and see in verse 6, we know that he's not in Jerusalem. He's not in the capital city where he would normally do his job and his work, maybe where he lived. He's well north of that in foreign territory. And we don't know why. It might be because of battle or exile or something. We really don't know. But for some reason, he's no longer able to gather with God's people in corporate worship. And so in verse 4, he says, These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. He remembers how good things used to be, right? This psalm was written by one of the sons of Korah, who were a special group of people whose job it was to facilitate the worship in Israel, right? That was their job. They were the worship leaders and facilitators. And he remembers corporate worship with fondness, with longing. It was a source of great encouragement to him.

12:29 But those days seem to be long gone. And we notice here that the psalmist's tone, he's not angry, he's not apathetic, he's desperate. And his chief concern is the apparent absence of God. He longs for God. He wants to worship and praise God, and yet his circumstances keep him from being able to do that. I wonder if that resonates with you this morning, if you have a deep longing for God that you feel is going unmet. Now, for some of us, it's just a wake-up call that we ought to have that kind of desperate, that kind of thirsty deer longing for God. It's really easy to take the blessings and the freedom that we enjoy for granted and to keep God kind of set to the side like the glass of water next to our beverage of choice, right?

13:21 But for some of you, I know that the psalmist's complaint sounds familiar. You want your relationship with God to be better than it is. Maybe you look back on a time of your life when it was a lot better. You were active in discipleship and evangelism in college, and now all you can do is just keep your job or keep your kids from killing themselves or each other. Maybe you used to teach, and now nobody seems to really care what you think. Or maybe you used to have lots of deep and encouraging relationships and now you don't seem to have any. Well, if that's you, this psalm is for you this morning.

13:55 And I want your voice to join with the psalmist in this lament as we move toward hope. Second thing we see, though, is the problem of opposition. So first we thought about isolation. Now we see the problem of opposition. So he's isolated from the regular worship of God, the community of faith, but he's not alone. he has enemies so in verse 3 he says my tears have been my food day and night they say to me all day long where is your God and then in verse 10 we see he says as with a deadly wound in my bones my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all day long where is your God and then 43 2 why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy we we don't know who these enemies are it doesn't really say anything about them other than what they say right but we see that they are our first and foremost enemies of his faith they mock him all day long they say to him where is your god and so his his internal unrest is compounded by

15:02 the ridicule of these evil people they worship idols they mock him for his faith in god and this causes him great distress. His tears are his food day and night. And so while he's on the one hand nearly dying of thirst for God, on the other hand he's gorging on his own tears. In verse 10 he says that the words that they speak are a deadly wound in his bones. So their constant and incessant taunting is not just a superficial scratch. It's having a deep effect. It's the spiritually equivalent of broken bones on this man. They're immobilizing. So you may have heard the saying, you know, sticks and stones break bones, but words never hurt. Well, the psalmist does not agree with that. Their words have sunk in and they've caused him great harm. And again, this may speak to some of you this morning. You may be here struggling in your faith. You may experience regular persecution from family or co-workers or friends or teachers that accuse God before you, that

16:05 raise scientific or philosophical or moral objections that you don't feel equipped to answer. They introduce doubt. They leave you questioning. They make you feel small or foolish because of your faith. Maybe they know that you stand for what the Bible teaches about marriage or gender or race or money or authority or something else, and they marginalize you or exclude you or mock you. You may even know that Paul tells Timothy that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. So the Bible accurately diagnoses this is what's happening, and yet the constant barrage of their attacks can leave you lacking confidence and questioning everything. And maybe for some of you, it's not outright persecution that's affected you, but still the words of other people have caused great harm on your soul. Maybe it's from other Christians, maybe even from people in this room. They've cut deep. They've harmed you. They've left

17:08 you questioning yourself and your relationships. Well, these words are for you too. And this leads us into the third complaint, the complaint of injustice. So the isolation and the oppression themselves aren't the only problem. The problem, really the underlying problem, is the apparent indifference of God. The psalmist starts with this question in verse two, when shall I appear before God? And then he wrestles with this conflict in six and seven. He says, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and Hermon from Mount Mazar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me.

17:54 He acknowledges his condition, that he's cast down, that he's discouraged, and he's trying to remember God. He's fighting, and yet here, instead of the absence of God, he experiences the overwhelming presence of God in discipline. There was once a drought, and now there's a flood. So I imagine him sitting there at Mount Mazar, looking at these rushing streams that eventually become the headwaters of the Jordan River, and he's watching something like many of us have done before I do this because I have little boys, like we go to the creek and we watch the water go over the rocks, right? And you catch a leaf or a stick or something and it's floating along and then it gets to the part where there's like rapids and it gets plunged over, plunged under, and then it might pop up for a second and then it goes back under. And he's watching that happening. He's watching this moving water and thinking about his own experience, feeling being crushed under the weight of waterfalls, just like being beaten by the waves at the ocean. He knows that God could be protecting him and because he isn't this experience of persecution is as if it's coming from God himself

18:57 and we hear his conflict pronounced in verse 8 by day the Lord commands his steadfast love and at night his song is with me a prayer to the God of my life so the psalmist knows what is true about God his love is steadfast it's never failing and even though the psalmist tears are his food day and night. He knows that God is also with him, present with him day and night. He's fighting to believe what is true about God, but he's losing the fight. It's like he's being tossed in the sea, coming up for a breath, and then being thrust back down again. So when he begins to pray, his heart comes out, why have you forgotten me? And this moves into a plea for God to act in the beginning of 43, he says, vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man. Deliver me, for you are the God in whom I take refuge.

19:54 Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? So he says, vindicate me, defend me. God, these are ungodly people. Why are you letting them attack me? Why are you letting them dominate me? Lord, I'm seeking your help. Why are you rejecting me? You can see the progression as we move through the psalm. He starts with, God, where are you? And then he moves on to, God, why have you forgotten me? God, why have you rejected me? Becomes more active and more personal with each step. So you can imagine a child coming out of school at the end of the day, in elementary school, right? Scanning the car line. Mom and dad, Mom and Dad, I don't see your car. Where are you? And the car line empties out, and it's, Mom and Dad, have you forgotten me? And then finally, you see your car, you recognize it, pulls into the parking lot and slows down, but before it stops for you to get in, they speed off and take off down the street, right? Why have you rejected me? That's how the psalmist feels. And in a lot of ways, this is

20:55 the core problem that runs through the whole psalm. It's not just that there are issues, but it's that God is failing to intervene to stop them. If he's all powerful and if he's all good, then why is he letting these bad things happen to someone who wants to be faithful to him? The first part of the chorus really captures his condition. He says, why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? So his circumstances have caused his gaze to go down inward, leading him to this internal turmoil and this state of despondency, of discouragement and depression.

21:34 And again, I just feel like it's important for us to realize that Christians have or are or will be in this position, broken and discouraged and questioning God. It's not just the state of non-Christians, right? Christians can find themselves here too. And for some of us, thankfully, it can be a short time, just a singular event. For some, it can be an occasional or a seasonal struggle. And for some people, maybe even people in this room, it feels like the daily and hourly and minute-by-minute struggle that dominates your existence.

22:06 And thankfully, friends, there is hope, even for people who feel beat down and dominated by that struggle. And the hope is here because the psalmist keeps praying. You see, the problem is not just having questions or doubts about God. That's perfectly reasonable, perfectly natural. The problem is when we stop going to God with our doubts and with our questions. When we stop talking to him, when we give up to him altogether. And so even the existence of this psalm is a testimony that the psalmist kept praying through his despair, that he continued to cry out to God, and he serves as a model for us. And so that leads us to the turn in the psalm, which is the reason for our hope. So in chapter 43, verse 3, we see his request. He says, So this is the anchor in the psalm that makes all the difference for him and will for us as well.

23:10 The answer to his struggle, the answer to his dilemma, is God's light and God's truth. These are the things that are going to lead the psalmist back into the presence of God, where he can resume his proper worship. See, he realizes that his greatest problem is not his enemies, it's not his circumstances, it certainly is not God, but it's himself. And it's how he's responded to his enemies and to his circumstances, how he's allowed them to obscure his perspective of God, that he's allowed God to be eclipsed.

23:42 And so he cries out to God for help. He's self-deceived and ignorant, and so he needs God's truth, and he's blind. so he needs God's light. The conflict inside of him and the oppression outside of him have left him confused, and it's only God's gracious intervention that can save him. It's God's revelation, God's truth, God's word that is the psalmist's only hope. And so God's salvation here is not one of a mighty act of deliverance of everything is okay in the end, in the sense of his immediate circumstances. It's not that, but it's soul transformation. It's internal and not external. God changes the psalmist and not his circumstances. And this makes all the difference.

24:29 The psalmist understands that though he's far from Jerusalem, though he's far from the temple, though he's in enemy territory and he's facing intense persecution, he can still worship God. He knows that what God has said in the past and what God has promised to do in the future, and that gives him confidence in the present and so he's hopeful that God will act to intervene and that he'll go back to participating in corporate worship with the people of God but he knows that the basis for his request is not his own relief but it's for God's glory and so even now he's he's restored and he's renewed internally because he sees himself for who he is he sees himself accurately, and he sees God the way that he should. He moves from despair to hope because God is in his proper place. And so he does something that's interesting. He interrupts his prayer to God to talk to himself. You see that? You look at 1 to 4, just the beginning, 42, 1 to 4, notice that the

25:31 you there is always referring to God. But in verse 5, when we start saying you, he's talking to my soul. And this happens again in 6 through 11 and again in chapter 43. Three times, the psalmist interrupts his prayer to God to talk to himself. Now, that sounds kind of crazy. But it's just us. Let's be honest. This is normal human experience, right? We talk to ourselves all the time. The weird thing is we're doing it right now, right? You're thinking about interacting with what I'm saying or you're daydreaming about lunch or something. I'm thinking about what you're thinking about what I'm saying. We're doing this constantly. And a large portion of what we're saying to ourselves is about ourselves, right? What we're observing, what we're feeling, what we're wanting, what we're hoping for, how we're interpreting the things that are happening around us. So friends, what are you saying to yourself? If we're talking that much, then what we're saying

26:31 has got to be really important. The author, Paul Tripp, puts it in stark terms. No one, no one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do. The psalmist gives us a pattern for the right way to do this. So we see that he addresses the problem. He says, why are you cast down? He gives instruction, hope in God. And he gives the reason, the basis for that instruction. I will again praise him. and so we see that he's looked squarely into the eyes of his despair, but then he weighs that against what he knows to be true about God. Do you see that? What's the basis for his hope in God?

27:14 He says, I shall again praise him. Now, the only thing that you can do again is something that you've done before, right? And so what he's doing is he's considering the past faithfulness of God. God has an unbroken record of saving and preserving his people. Through seemingly impossible circumstances, God has delivered them and given them reasons to praise and worship him. And the psalmist has been a part of that for years probably. He's worshipped God because of his past faithfulness. And so based on that, and because of God's promises, the psalmist knows that he will praise God again.

27:50 God will rescue and the psalmist will worship. And this allows him to put his discouragement, his despair, in its proper place and grounds his confidence in the present. And so a simple way, I think, to say this, it's kind of a mouthful, but it's simple. Past faithfulness assures future praiseworthiness and justifies present hope despite difficult circumstances. Past faithfulness assures future praiseworthiness and justifies present hope despite difficult circumstances.

28:27 So a right perspective on the past and the future gives him a right perspective on the present. Instead of zooming in on his circumstances so tightly that he can't see anything else, he's blind to what's going on around him, he's zoomed out and he sees the big picture of salvation history, what God has done and what God has promised to do and it helps him to put his circumstances in their proper place. And so the bottom line is that God is worth waiting on. He has delivered, and he will deliver, and that's good news.

29:00 But more importantly than that, even, is that God is worth waiting for. Do you notice how personal the language of this psalm is? He starts with a longing for God. He's taunted with the language of your God. He refers to God as my salvation, my rock, my exceeding joy, my God. That is deeply personal language here. There's a lot of wives in this room. There's only one my wife, right? And this is an invitation for us as people who hear God's word.

29:35 We don't get to just know facts about God, but we get to know him as God. We get to know a God who is so committed to us that he sent his own eternal son to die for us. We get to know him as a perfect heavenly father who loves us, who protects us, who delights to do good for us, who created us to be happy in him. And that relationship is made possible because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We were created to know and delight in God, to be in perfect relationship with him, but we rejected him and we went our own way and we put ourselves first. And the short, simple way to describe that is sin. And because of that sin, because of our rejection of God, we all deserve judgment. But God sent his son, Jesus, to stand in the place of sinners, to live the life that we should have lived, and to die the death that we should have died, and then to rise again and ascend into heaven, so that we know that his work is finished, and that he now reigns over all things. And he did this in order to bring us to God. And now God offers forgiveness and acceptance

30:36 as a free gift to anyone who comes to him in repentance and faith, on the basis of what Jesus has done. And so, friends, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, this is the most wonderful, the best news that you could ever hear in your life about anything. Jesus invites you to come to him in faith. So cry out to him. Ask him for his forgiveness. And if you don't have confidence in that this morning, please don't leave here without at least talking to somebody about that. Now, if you're a Christian, that's the God that we claim to know, the God that we claim to love, the truth that we say defines us, right? But does it? If we were to wake up tomorrow morning to the news that there had been a security breach, a leak, and that every thought from your head, everything you've said to yourself was now revealed for the world to see to read, to hear what would we think?

31:35 Specifically, what would we think about the God that you claim to worship? I assume for most of you like it is for me, that's a really sobering question. And as I alluded to earlier there may be no more important spiritual skill for your survival than learning how to talk to yourself about yourself. how to interrupt your own inner dialogue and speak the truth of God's word into your circumstances, his faithfulness into the confusion and self-deception that is your inner thought life.

32:06 We have to learn to stop listening to ourselves and to start talking to ourselves. And so I want to share just a few ways here to help us think about how to do that. First of all, simply just listen to yourself. The psalmist is hearing a lot of stuff, right? And we're hearing a lot of stuff. Whether it's through actual voices of people talking to us, whether it's thoughts that pop up in our head and our own inner dialogue that's going on, we're constantly hearing, we're constantly listening to something. And in some ways, it's as if our minds are just kind of echo chambers of things that we've heard, things that we've said to ourselves or other people have said to us and they just keep coming back again and again and again.

32:45 So identify, what is it that you're saying to yourself about God, about yourself, about your circumstances? What are the things that you repeat to yourself over and over again? second so listen and then evaluate your thoughts we a lot of times don't even have control over the things that we hear right we can't we can't block everything out we hear a lot of stuff we don't have control over that sometimes we don't even have control over what we think like crazy thoughts pop into our heads right this is real crazy thoughts pop in our head we don't have control over that we don't know why but we do have some control over what we do with them right? We can let those thoughts run, or we can stop them, and we can speak to them.

33:28 So that leads us to the third point. Speak truth to yourself. So a lot of us can resonate with the psalmist's experience, right? The circumstances are not good. He's genuinely seeking God. Things don't seem to be going well, and so the voices around him seem to be constructing an accurate narrative of reality, right? People are constantly mocking him. Where is this God you claim to know? So much so that he begins to wonder himself, God, have you forgotten me? So he has that thought, but then he speaks to that thought.

34:00 Hope in God. Which in some ways is to say to those other voices, shut up. He silences those objections with these little words, hope in God. That are rooted in an awareness of so many things that God has done in the past. And so many things that he has promised to do in the future. so that his present suffering is exposed for what it really is, light and fleeting. Despair gives way to hope.

34:32 And as the people of God, we've got to learn how to harness our self-talk, to grab ourselves by the collar and say to ourselves, to get in your face and say, hope in God. Paul tells us that we are to take every thought captive and to set our minds on the things that are above. we have to make ourselves say things that foster faith and confidence in God rather than fear and anxiety and discouragement and so as you read your bible look for things that say what is true about God and about yourself remember God's great acts of salvation study what it means to be united with Christ and let those things be the things that you say to yourself again and again and again fourth sing truth to yourself let's remember that this is a song right music is is powerful it gets deep inside of us as the theologian clint black notes ain't it funny how a melody can bring back a memory take you to another place in time completely change your state of mind because

35:37 the psalmist recognized the power of music he developed this little chorus to sing to himself in the midst of his struggles so the songs that we sing friends are an essential tool for the battle of the soul if we sing the right ones they get god's truth to the root level of our hearts where they nourish and they sustain us you know music can be a form of identity i'm not saying that you should only listen to christian music but i do hope that you have enough of the right kind of music stored up in the playlist of your heart that you can access it whenever you need it. Paul puts it this way in Colossians 3, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. So do you have a rich collection of songs that help you reflect on God's word? You can take this morning's bulletin and devote those five to memory because they were all rock solid.

36:39 And that leads us into our last point here. Sing truth together. So this chorus, born out of this man's personal intense experience, became an anthem for the worshiping nation of Israel to steer them away from falling off the cliff of unbelief and to steady them on the path toward God. And so for 3,000 years, God's people have been able to go to these words and find comfort. That's incredible. Paul tells the church to teach and admonish one another by singing songs to one another. And this is why we spend a good portion of our limited time together. We don't spend a lot of time corporately as a whole church gathered. And a lot of the time we spend together, we sing. It's because songs are important. They teach us. They help us to remember what's true about God. They help us to pray. They reinforce the truths of God's word for each other, and they give a powerful witness that when we come together as a diverse people, different in experiences,

37:40 different in lots of ways, but united in our affirmation of the worth of our God and the glory of our Savior. And that's a beautiful thing. We don't have the most entertaining music on Sunday mornings. And that's no offense, no slight. Thankful to everybody who served us well this morning. Grateful for you. That's because the goal is not to entertain. The goal is to join with the saints across the world and throughout history in confessing and meditating on and celebrating what is true about God, to store that up for when we need it, to bring focus and perspective when the circumstances would obscure our view of him. You know, I didn't have the privilege of knowing Katrina von Schlegel since we missed each other by about 250 years, but she wrote the hymn that we saying earlier in the service, be still my soul. And I would just love to thank her for it.

38:35 Because a couple years ago, I was having a really hard time. I was lonely. I was discouraged. I was feeling the weight of a lot of different things, but especially relationships that felt lost and broken. And then one Sunday night, we came here like we usually do and opened the bulletin and we started singing and we sang these words. Be still, my soul, when dearest friends depart and all is darkened with the veil of tears. Then you shall better know his love, his heart, who comes to soothe your sorrows and your fears. Be still, my soul. Your Jesus can repay from his own fullness all he takes away.

39:22 And I really believe that in that moment, God did a work in my heart as we sang that truth to one another, as you sang that truth to me, as we were reminded of what is true about God. I was convinced and remain convinced today and we sang it again this morning that Jesus can and will repay everything that he takes away. Praise God. So listen, evaluate, speak, sing, sing. For those of you who need an acronym, that's less. This chorus captures the essential truth that God's past faithfulness assures his future praiseworthiness and justifies present hope despite difficult circumstances.

40:10 Let's look back at it once again. Why are you downcast, O my soul? and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Jesus himself actually quotes, or at least alludes to these words, in the garden of Gethsemane, when he tells his disciples, my soul is sorrowful even unto death. You see, Jesus was looking into the coming suffering on the cross of being forsaken by his father, and he was already being crushed under that weight. Jesus knew that he would experience the true darkness of the soul.

40:49 He was going to be utterly forsaken by God. He experienced isolation as his friends abandoned him and he was led outside of the city. He experienced opposition as he was rejected and mocked and beaten and crucified. And Jesus experienced the greatest injustice that the world has ever or will ever know when on the cross the previously unbroken love of the father and the son the fellowship of the eternal trinity was interrupted and jesus would ask god where are you god why have you forgotten me god why have you rejected me and god's answer in that moment was silence god did reject him because there was no other way god was determined to save and this was the only way for him to forgive sinners and maintain his perfect righteousness. And so in that moment, God treated his son like a sinner so that he could receive sinners as his sons. So Jesus then is the light and the truth that lead us back into the presence of God, that restore our right relationship

41:50 with him and cause us to worship him anew. And so as we close, I just want to consider briefly how the gospel addresses each of these concerns that the psalmist has raised. In response to isolation, The gospel assures us of God's presence. Jesus promised that he would be with us always to the end of the age. God sent his spirit to indwell his people. He jealously longs for the spirit he made to dwell in us. And so Paul describes it this way in Romans 8. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are with him forever. In response to oppression, the gospel assures us of God's acceptance. On the basis of, sorry that's in response to opposition, God, the gospel assures us of God's acceptance. On the basis of Jesus's work, Christians are given the right to be God's

42:52 children. We are chosen and foreknown and loved and sealed. God invites us to cast our cares on him because he cares for us. Jesus has granted us access into God's presence where we are told again and again and again to draw near. The greatest privilege that we have as Christians is to know God as our Father. Just a few weeks ago, Tim Keller, most of you, a lot of you will know, the pastor from New York, went to be with the Lord. And one of his famous quotes that I keep seeing again and again, it just captures this truth so well, is that only the child of a king has the right to knock on his door and wake him up at three in the morning for a glass of water.

43:34 Right? That's the kind of access we have to the living God. In response to injustice, the gospel assures us of God's grace. So Christians understand that if God were just righteous, if he were only righteous, we would be condemned, right? The gospel tells us that God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And so we understand that we benefit from the greatest injustice that the world has ever known. We were enemies and God has forgiven us. And when we realize that, it changes us. We stop focusing on all the things that we're entitled to and we start focusing on how we can devote ourselves to practical service to God because we love him. We care more about bringing justice to other people than we do ourselves. We stop calculating the benefit that we're going to get from what we do, and we give freely because we know that through Jesus, we can only come out ahead.

44:27 We believe that it's better to give than to receive, that the last shall be first. And so we set about to outdo others in showing honor and not receiving honor. The gospel also transforms the way that we understand our own suffering, our suffering as Christians is never, never, never, never, never God's wrath against our sin. Because that's already been fully exhausted on the cross. So it may be his refining discipline to expose our idolatry and help us to worship him more faithfully and rely on him more completely.

45:01 It may be a platform that God gives us to display to the world that God and his glory is more valuable to us than the world's fleeting pleasures. But if we are in Christ, it is never God's judgment. And the gospel also assures us that the day of perfect justice will come. So Jesus promises that he will return, that he will judge the world, that he will save his people, that he will make all things new. And so in the gospel, friends, we have the most compelling evidence to see God's past faithfulness and the fact that Jesus died and rose again. We have confidence in his future praiseworthiness, that he will return and he will bring his people to himself, and that must secure our present hope in Christ, despite our circumstances.

45:51 Now, I realize it's really easy for me to stand in the pulpit and say that, and it's a lot easier to say it here than it is to live it in real life. Many of you are here this morning with some shadow over you, and I don't want to minimize that at all. I know how hard that is, and I wish that we could just make it go away or give you some assurance that it will get better soon but I can't do that in fact the relationship that you're struggling with may never be restored and the wrong against you may go unaddressed and the suffering that you're experiencing may not stop and the prognosis may be negative and the loneliness might not go away until until the shout of command and the voice of the archangel and the blast of the trumpet when Jesus splits the sky and raises all the dead from every grave and from the depths of the sea, where he judges every deed, brings it into account where every wicked person is condemned, and when we, the people of God, are welcomed into his presence to see his face and be with him for all eternity in unending praise.

46:54 John puts it this way, and I heard the loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more and neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have gone away. And he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.

47:27 And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. to the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment, to the one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. So friends, if you're a Christian, that's the kingdom that we're waiting for. That's the kingdom that is promised to us. And so Paul says for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

48:01 For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. And so that's the call for us, friends, is to take our eyes off of ourselves and our circumstances and to look to what is unseen. God's faithfulness in Jesus' death and resurrection and the certainty of his coming kingdom give us the hope we need to endure today, to wait for him, no matter what we're going through. And the way to see what is unseen is faith. To speak truth to yourself when God seems to have gone dark, to sing truth to yourself and to sing truth to one another until he comes and faith gives way to sight.

48:41 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God. For on that day, I shall again praise him and praise him forever. My salvation and my God. Let's pray together. father in heaven we confess that again it is much easier to say those truths than to live them but god we pray that by the power of your spirit you would give us faith to see what is not seen to hold on to the truth of what you have done in the past in christ what you have promised us in the future lord to set that vision before us always to sing and speak hope into our present circumstances. Lord, and we pray that we would be a people of faith, that we would be a people who are marked by singing hope to glorify Christ until he comes. We pray this in his name. Amen.