Psalm 119:50
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Good evening, church. It is a joy and honor to be here with you all this evening. If you have a Bible, please open to Psalm 119, verse 50. It's going to be on page 513. And a pop quiz, a question for you as you're turning there. Do you know which school among the special forces in the military has the highest dropout rate. It's not the Army Rangers. It's not the Green Berets. It's not even the Navy SEALs.
It's actually the U.S. Air Force Pararescue. With a dropout rate of nearly 90%, few actually make it all the way to the end. Pararescue, or PJs as they are called, are trained to conduct the most daring of rescue missions known to man. But to actually become a PJ is another story. Their training pipeline is two years long. They do all kinds of training ranging from free-fall parachuting to combat scuba diving to paramedic training to special forces training.
It's easy to see why so few make it to the end. But perhaps the most dreaded event is known as extended training day. Starting at 2 a.m., air horns go off. Recruits have three minutes to put on all their gear and all their clothes. For the next 21 hours, they are going to go between rucking and spontaneous exercise and water sessions in the pool. They will train all day to complete and utter exhaustion.
No relief is given. They're going to endure intense suffering. So what carries them through? Those who make it to the end. How do they endure this intense suffering? When pain and affliction will not abate or let up, Those who make it endure because of what awaits them at the end. They do it for the tab, the title that says pararescue. But what about you?
Where do you go when faced with affliction? Where do you go to ultimately find relief? We all will face suffering. Perhaps even right now you are in the middle of suffering. Suffering is a part of living in a fallen world tainted and affected by sin. But what if you could not only just endure suffering, but could in fact thrive in the midst of suffering? When your hope is rooted in something greater than your present circumstance, you will find comfort in the midst of suffering.
So how do we get this comfort? Where do we find this hope? Well, this is what we're going to find out tonight. Our text this evening is Psalm 119.50. So if you have a Bible, please turn there. If you haven't, it's going to be on page 513. And it's also on the front of your bulletin as well. Look with me at verse 50. Our text reads, This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
My sermon this evening is going to be organized around three separate movements. We're going to be looking at our present affliction, the steady hope, and cultivating comfort. Again, present affliction, steady hope, cultivating comfort. And the main idea of our sermon this evening is going to be this. God's word provides comfort in the midst of affliction. God's Word provides comfort in the midst of affliction.
Just a short introduction to our verse. Psalm 119 is primarily concerned with understanding God's law and learning how to love His instruction. It is the largest psalm in all psalms, and in fact, it's the largest chapter in the entire Bible. It is constructed in the form of 22 little stanzas, one for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, And each stanza has eight verses in each that begin with the same Hebrew letter and are connected as little literary units.
And so our verse is the second verse in the seventh stanza. It opens with the words, this is my comfort in my affliction. The psalmist begins with the situation. The word for affliction can also be rendered suffering here. the psalmist is in the midst of pain, constraint, suffering. But what kind of suffering? What is going on to the psalmist? Well, we just have to look at neighboring verses in our stanza.
Verse 51 says he's experiencing derision or ridicule for those have to look up what derision means. He's experiencing ridicule from those around him. He's experiencing indignation or anger in verse 53 because there are people who forsake the instruction in law of God. In verse 54, we see that he has experienced sojourning or wandering without a land, without a home. The fact that these examples are not specific mean that we can relate with the psalmist.
So what about you? Have you faced suffering or affliction this past year, this past month, this past week, this very day? Have you found yourself facing ridicule by family members, by friends, by co-workers, by classmates for what you believe in about God? Do you look around at culture and society and feel anger because people believe such ridiculous things, things that are actually, in fact, wicked, and yet they're celebrated? Do you find yourself far from the state or country that you love or you've left? Or for those of us who feel like we're constantly moving around, do you struggle with the frequent thought, it's hard to feel like I truly belong in this place? If you have answered yes to any of these, then you understand the plight of the
psalmist. He finds himself in the midst of affliction, just like we all do. It's important to know and remember that we aren't promised affliction-free life as Christians. Especially for followers of Jesus, there's going to be suffering before eternal glory. And yet, yet, the psalmist says he finds comfort in the midst of suffering. In the midst of all the pain, in the midst of constraint, in the midst of illnesses and tragedies and hardships and trials, there is rest. There is reprieve. In God, there is comfort. So how do we get it?
So we have seen in movement one, ours and the psalmist's present affliction. Now we turn to our second movement and we find the source of steady hope. Comfort ultimately comes when you realize the source of your hope. Look with me again at verse 50. It reads, that your promise gives me life. First, what does the psalmist mean when he uses the word promise? It's helpful to look at the surrounding context. The psalmist in Psalm 119 will use many words to refer to God's word.
He will use promise, he will use statutes, law, testimonies, commandments, precepts, All around this same idea. Even closer to our verse, verse 49 says, Remember your word to your servant. Promise is just another synonym here for the word of God. So the word of God provides comfort and life to the psalmist. Even in the midst of affliction. For the psalmist, he was trusting in the anticipated work that God was going to do.
But for the Christian, for us, we trust in the finished work that God has done. In the New Testament, we see that God sent his Son to the earth. The Gospels give witness and testimony to the divine and human work of Jesus. The letters of Paul and others detail because of how what Jesus has done and what he did, for those who trust in him, they have secured eternal life.
And that starts now. This is not like a future experience. It is future, but also a present experience. 1 Thessalonians 4 tells us that we should not grieve as the rest of mankind grieves. who have no hope, but should be comforted by the fact that Jesus will return. And those who followed him will come with him. And Jesus will right all wrongs.
Christian, your hope should ultimately rest in God. Your comfort should be found in his word. The Bible, which is true and trustworthy, and in the finished work of Jesus, who has ultimately united us to God. So how do we do this practically? In the first movement, we saw the present affliction. And in the second one, we saw the source of steady hope. And in our last movement, we see how to cultivate comfort in the midst of suffering.
A really old theologian, not because he's old, because he lived 1,600 years ago, once, writing about this verse, wrote, I had this consolation in the calamities, and borne up by it, I negotiated the billows. In other words, like a ship out at sea, even though the waves roared and crashed over the deck, Even though the wind beat on the mast and the sails, this man was comforted because he knew God held his ship afloat.
I heard someone once say, you're either going into a storm, you're in the midst of a storm, or you're coming out of a storm. To cultivate comfort, you must remember these three verbs. Study, orient, share. or SOS. For those of us going into a storm, study God's Word and His promise. Make the understanding of God's Word a priority in your life. I get it. Life is busy. It's hard to fit things in when you work a normal nine to five or even longer and have so many other pressing responsibilities.
my son, bless him, wakes up at 6.30 on the dot every morning. Many days look like just listening to a few chapters on the radio as I'm driving to work. It's not perfect, but if something is worth doing, it's worth doing imperfectly. So find any way to study God's Word, to make it a priority in your life and to dwell on it. For those of us in the storm, orient your heart towards the source of hope, God in his word. It's often difficult in the storm to remember that God actually uses suffering for a purpose. It's often a time when we want to slink back into sin and or other things just to distract us.
Perhaps most of us don't even realize that our hearts are actually doing that when we are placing our hope in something else instead of God. A diagnostic test for you. Before you start your busy day, what do you find yourself doing first thing in the morning? Is it looking at the news? Is it opening your phone to scroll through whatever app? What about after a long, hard day at work? What do you go to first to relax?
Is it TV? Is it games? Is it social media? What causes you immense stress when you just begin to think about it? Is it your bank account? Is it an upcoming exam? Our hearts often stray far from God when we are in the midst of suffering, when we're in the storm. But comfort ultimately comes when we orient our hearts towards God in the storm. And lastly, if you're coming out of the storm, share with others how God has comforted you, how He has been faithful. In a church our size, I know we have experienced every kind of heartbreak, every kind of heartache, every kind of pain, every kind of constraint imaginable. The beauty is, though, is that God has carried us through, and he is faithful to
continue to carry us through. You have hope and encouragement to share with others, other believers in the church. We young people especially need to hear from you older saints how God has been constant in comforting you in the midst of the storm. Additionally, your workplaces and schools, they're places of darkness. Often you are the only Christian that your friends and co-workers know.
Have you ever thought about that? Take a moment during your week this week to stop and ask how these people are doing, how your friends and co-workers are doing. Ask them serious questions about their life. They will probably open up and they will share some of the hardships that they are doing. The difference is they do not have hope or comfort in that suffering, but you do. So take a moment to share with them, to proclaim the goodness of God and his word to them. Pray with them and for them afterwards that they might believe in God who brings everlasting comfort.
Brothers and sisters, we are going to experience suffering and affliction until the day Jesus returns. But we also worship a good God who provides comfort in the midst of our affliction. so study his word orient your heart and share this hope with others let's pray god we thank you for your word and for your son jesus you provide comfort in the midst of affliction i pray lord we would trust and dwell on your promises in the name of jesus we pray amen