God is Our Hope

Before I begin, there it is. Before I begin, I just want to say, this last Sunday here, as many of you know, I hope all of you know at this point, I just want to say a large thank you. It hasn't sunk in yet that I'm leaving. This place has become so normal. It's kind of like when you go off to college, you expect to come back at some point. And it will be it will be a long journey through I know West Virginia at least wondering what am I doing and then how do I get out of here. But I want you to know as as you all as a church taking in at that point a 24 year old with not knowing me at all just trusting Keith and he had only been on the job for a month that that I came and you guys accepted me with with great open arms and you fed me a lot and I And my parents are always surprised every time they see me like wow Virginia is great. So. But anyway I want to thank you not just not just a humanly way but also you have been a refreshing reminder of God's grace in my life. And this has been a wonderful place to seek refuge and teaching and prayer. And I will never forget it, and I hope that I don't have to forget it from afar. I hope to invade your homes, whether on fall break or in Christmas or at some point. So if you see me on Christmas morning, that would be bizarre. But maybe a fall break. So anyway, thank you. Thank you very much. And I hope I'll get a chance to hug you all afterwards, depending on how this goes. But... Well that's a hard transition to try to transition into Psalm 42. So thank you. And it gets worse. So to be honest this has been a pretty difficult passage for me to prepare for and read over in the last week. Mostly because I can't really, at this point in life, match the emotions and the personality of what this text teaches and what it's preaching to us because we see in this text an enormous amount of despair and trial, an enormous amount of utter confusion about what is going on. And I approach this at a very good time in my life where God has just continued to bless me. But the Bible just isn't filled with one kind of emotion, nor does it always reflect how we are at one point in time. So that's why we daily seek the reminder of the Lord through his word so that in times of trial, we can be reminded of what it's like. I remember going off to college and everyone hits that point in their first semester where they think, I'm going to die. And you call your parents at like two or three in the morning and you're just like, hello, dad, do you know macroeconomics? Because I don't. And so you just but luckily I had a very good pastor growing up who taught us faithfully in the book of Philippians. And so I could just remember his sermons in that time of despair and I could go back and remind myself what was Paul speaking. What was he talking about when he was talking about how much joy he had for not only his church but also for the Lord in his own heart. So we see that the Bible just isn't filled with one kind of emotion, and that shouldn't surprise us, because even though it's inspired and it's God's word, it is written by men who have emotions themselves. Obviously, some men like Paul were excited and enthused to get a letter off to Philippi. And there are other reflective books like Proverbs and a concise and urgent argument like that of the Gospel of Mark. And then we have the Psalms that seems so volatile in our lives, so filled with emotions that if we were to read it in just one sitting, it would be a very exhausting day because there are times of triumph and despair and hope and longing for God to come. And Psalms is known to be the most honest book in the perspective of tone. It's full of joy and it's also ridden with anger. It has confusion and also gospel boldness and it has shouts of gladness and also quiet responses of wonder of God's love for sinners like you and me. But I think most people like the Psalms because they can quickly turn to it and have some matching emotions that look back at them in the text. You know, through the times of trial, you can look up and go, that guy went through it, too. And I've read the end of the Bible. And, you know, it was good at the end, too. So maybe I'll be OK. Or there are times of triumph where you are kind of humbled by going, well, I'm not as rich as David was. So maybe I should kind of put things in perspective. So we see that Psalms is always one that can engage us where we are and hopefully where the Lord will lead us to go in light of his bringing to us in perfect holiness. If you're a Christian today, you may often feel happy. You show love for others around you in so many ways, whether through your money or through your letters or through your words and encouragement. But even though we constantly sing the song, I've got a joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Sometimes that last joy seems to fade a little bit longer at different points in life. There are often black spots in our hearts. And even though the pleasures of the world that God has blessed us with, we sometimes feel like we're the guy ringing the bell for the Salvation Army at the mall, except we we don't have a bell. And it's not Christmas, we're just kind of meandering around in public, hoping that someone will provide us with care and that someone will reach out to us and just acknowledge the fact that we don't feel well in the spirit. Many times life seems sad and sometimes we seem to be wandering around furiously pansy as if nothing is in our favor. While things may be going OK, our soul, though. Outside of our circumstances, our soul seems to be sad and wanting more. It's difficult for Christians to live a life. While acknowledging that something is wrong, is it not? It's hard to come into church and when people say, hey, it's good to see you and you kind of go, you know, or hey, how's it going? I mean, honestly, terrible. But those are never responses that we want to give. We always want to just be like, fine, it's OK, I'm doing great. You know, summer is almost here. But it's difficult for Christians to acknowledge that sometimes things don't go well in our hearts. We live in a culture which wants to put the blame on something else. And on top of that, we want to admit that we are not dry, because surely if we love God who overflows like the hymns we sing and the songs we play on the radio, surely if that is a fountain of God's joy, then maybe there's something wrong with us on the inside that we feel empty. And also, it's hard to admit to other people this, because sometimes you'll say to your friends, you know, it's not going well in my life. And they'll kind of say, not really knowing what to say. Well, have you been in the Word lately? How are your quiet times going? How many Bible verses have you read this week? Are you confessing your sin or seeking accountability? Here, here's a small book by J.I. Packer. It'll solve all your problems. And when you're done with that, here's another book by Max Licato. They're simple. We'll solve all your problems, but you read them and you remind yourself and you still feel an anguish. Society may paint the picture of Christianity as people being happy-go-lucky like we see in the movies or cartoon characters, but we would be wrong to ignore the fact that sometimes the outlook is dark and dreary for us. While the Bible talks about triumphs and conquests, and you need to remind yourselves of those, It also screams out of frustration, internal turmoil and utter distraught. But take encouragement in the fact that even the strongest believers suffer extreme discouragement and despair, and that's why we'll turn to Psalm 42 this morning. If you'll take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 42 or if you have an app on your phone, pull it out. And listen to what God has to say about man, evil. and also himself through the words of the psalmist. Before reading with me, you'll be aided to know that this song is a part of a collection written to the sons of Korah. Now, Korah was a Levite who had previously led a rebellion against Moses. And even though he was killed for this, his descendants remained faithful to the Lord and serving him in the temple. The King David then appointed these men the sons of Korah from this group to serve as choir leaders and they continue to be temple musicians for hundreds of years after that. Yet in this song we see in Psalm 42 that a son of Korah who is separated from the group. He was exiled to a place far from Jerusalem. We read just from the geography of it and could no longer worship in the temple. During these God given holidays the nation was to remember what all God had done for them yet he was without these things which caused him previously to worship and to sing of great joy and to long for the Lord who he felt in the presence and he becomes depressed because of it. So, the viewpoint of this section is an upward look at a downcast soul filled with enormous stress and haunting imagery. If you read it in just its context, we see the depth of man's spiritual anxiety, but all while at the same time we see a promise fulfilled by God, which I am excited to get to at the remainder part of the sermon. Here we see mixed emotions in this sun song tone rising and falling. Even if you read it, it's kind of almost hard to track it for not even the commas or the semicolons give way of the emotions of what this person is going through. And this speaks outward and inward from complaints. It speaks also to praise and from from anxiousness that then finally speaks to hope to read with me as I read aloud Psalm 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? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? 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. But why are you downcast, oh my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hoping God for I shall praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is downcast within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon and 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 my enemy? As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall praise Him, my salvation and my God. For the last five months we've been looking at the book of Colossians following Paul's argument for taking refuge in satisfaction in Christ alone in the midst of everything else we want to aim our hearts towards who Christ is. Paul was making a case for such an exalted view of Christ that any other practice or perspective of the world around you would be dull in comparison. Just remind yourself of Colossians 1, 15 through 20, that exalted image of a savior who wouldn't want to keep looking at that. There are no conversations to be had in Paul's letter, though Paul was simply giving truth, wrapping it in a package and putting it in front of us, waiting for us to digest of its truth. But here, here we're looking at something that seems not like an argument, but rather a conversation in the midst of the song of soul. We encounter a soul that appears at its last straw. Feeling utterly empty in pursuing Christ. Yes, having that exalted image, but feeling empty. This morning, I asked you to consider not only the psalmist conversation, but also the idea that you are continually conversing with yourself in your own mind. Do you not talk to yourself day in and day out? What is the first thing you say in the morning? And are you actually telling anyone that information? As you wander on a jog or maybe go home from work, are you not talking to yourself, arguing with yourself, wondering, not out loud, but internally? But have you ever considered the impact of that ongoing conversation in your soul and have you have you ever thought to yourself that you are actually the most influential person in your own life? Yes, we can buy books about influential leaders and we can see biographies about influential people around us. And we've all had a coach who's impacted us or a parent that we long for in teaching. But when we look at this song, we see this internal turmoil is based on the fact that this psalmist is talking to himself and he is also listening to himself. This morning, we'll examine our own conversations through seeing the agony of the psalmist. our conversations in light of evil and also our conversations in God. Now there are three ways I think you can look at this text. One, you can just go line by line, verse by verse. You can also look at it thematically. And the way that I'm going to do it this morning is looking at the three different perspectives that I see here. I think there's a perspective of man, a perspective of evil, and then perspective of God. So we're going to engage in that this way. The first one, the condition of man. First, we look at the condition of man in this text, having a downcast soul. Obviously, in just reading the passage, you would acknowledge, too, that he was depressed, for his desperation led to agony, and his agony then led to depression. Verses 5, 6, and 11 identify his soul as cast down or downcast, depending on your translation. And in reflection of your own soul, many of you may be all too familiar with feeling like you're in a pit that floor seems to sink deeper and deeper as the day goes on. I think there are two experiences in this text that explained why the Psalter is so downcast. The first one, there is obviously an absence of feeling God and verses one through four. Here you'll notice that the psalmist is a worship leader thirsty for God's presence so thirsty that he likens his soul to that of a deer panting for flowing streams. Now this shouldn't give you a mental image of appear of a deer quietly resting by a stream. If you if you go home and you Google Psalm 42 and you click on images you will find like millions of images of a pleasant looking deer in a nice flowing stream. That is not what this psalmist is writing about. This is much like a baby who is in an open field who hasn't been fed for days, longing for his mother so that he can seek the nourishment that he used to have. This soul is longing for God. Yet is not feeling the passion that he once felt. Remember that he's separated from others. And he can't do what he feels called to do, that of leading worship. I mean, imagine in your own calling in life, if you were kept from it, not that you chose a different route, but you were retained in either your home or if you were calling to be a mother, your children were all taken away from you and you couldn't talk to them or communicate to them. There would be anxiety over everything that is going on in your life. He reflects on his own past even. Reminding himself of the joy that he used to have when being a worship leader in verse four, by seeing himself in his current separation, yet having those dreams and reminders that haunt him. All of this causes us to ask, who told him that he's separate from God? Who's reminding him? Who's taunting him? Why is he allowing himself to feel, yeah, I am not around God. I don't feel happy. The joy of the Lord is not in my heart any longer for the temple. I cannot see in the tabernacle. I cannot worship him. Here, the Psalter is now more aware of the absence of God than the presence of his holiness, and so we ask ourselves and thinking about conversations in our own life. Are we putting in truth or are we seeing a false tinted view of reality? Nobody here told him that he was separate from God. He was physically separate. The second area where I think he is falling short. The second area where the psalmist is troubled within his trials. Is that the psalm is that this psalmist is going through utter and deep dark trials in verse seven. He goes he cries out deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers in your waves have gone over me. This is not a pleasant feeling. I don't know if any of you have ever been on a lake or an ocean and a boat has gone by and all of a sudden this big current just overflows and you can't get to where you need to go. Or you've been rafting or canoeing in a river and you're fighting constantly against the current that is about you. And this is where we see deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. This overflowing force of despair that is going over this man's soul. And rather than hearing the trumpets and the percussions and the harps that he is used to hearing as a worship leader, he is now hearing waves of relentless suffering and separation, causing him to feel anxiety and despair. His soul is overwhelmed, and you can see just by his vocabulary that he feels oppressed. With waves crashing over him, it models the words in Jeremiah and Joel, where we too are all familiar with trials in our own lives, where we start using adjectives that we wouldn't normally use to describe the horrible feelings that we go through. Even now, you're probably thinking of something in your head that you're going through or have gone through. Or the anxiety of something that's coming up and you don't know how you will be able to make it through that time. Many of you have parents who will soon go away to college in five years and you feel like there will be an emptiness where you've spent so much time trying to raise them. And now what will you do? Where will your joy be at that point? Many of you have been retired for quite a while and you reflect on your life and has had years and decades and decades of working for others and providing for others. Your children now have grandchildren and you may sit in your house and go, I don't feel like I'm a part of anything anymore. I just feel like now I'm just living, whereas I used to feel like I was thriving. And so we can reflect with our own emotions, feeling what the psalmist, feeling separated from what we see as our calling in life. While we'll examine God in a moment, think for just a second, this man is feeling separated from God. And also think for a moment who is telling him that and why is he attacking himself with this knowledge throwing himself into the deep and dried up emotions. The second perspective in this text is that of evil. So the second category in this text is that of evil evil that reminds us of the world's fallenness around us. There are all kinds of evil that the Bible speaks about from beginning to end. But this kind of evil is that of more of a whisper in the ear. Often depicted in cartoons as having one angel on a shoulder and a demon on the other. We see this existence of battling between two wills, of listening to things around us where the evil demon is creeping into the mind. Do that. Do that. And here we see in this psalmist, the evil one is whispering in his ear, where is your God? If you're feeling so out of control, if you're feeling so separate from the world around you, where is your God? He must not love you. Remember the songs that you used to sing? What happened to the melody? Remember the triumphs that you used to have? Where are your trophies? The devil will often tempt us to question God's presence and love for us, even though the psalmist doesn't excuse his troubled soul. He doesn't blame it on anything, but he's obviously impacted by his surroundings. Anxiety and fear can take a toll on our emotions when we listen to false evidence. In the same way, the serpent spoke to Eve, that of confusion. Evil speaks to the Psalter, where is your God as a creeping in a little sound bite of wondering maybe he's not here. There's an internal conversation going on in your head, but it's not just coming from you. You constantly listen to all kinds of talkers and tellers around you. Just think about when you're wanting to sleep, but you aren't really tired. What's going on in your mind? You're making lists that you're not actually writing down. You're thinking of inventions that you could do. I always seem to know the right answers for tests right before I go to sleep. the day before the test, only to wake up in despair. But there's an internal conversation going on where whispers are happening around you. Let's remind ourselves that the internal conversation never ends. So throughout the day, you have two choices. You can either talk to yourself with this or you can listen to everything else around you. And in this case, the psalmist is being tormented by what others are saying to him. Not what he's also saying to himself. He's being impacted greatly by the lives of others. Do you take seriously when examining this, the account that evil is in just around your body? What roles does the devil play in your heart today? Where is he causing leaks of frustration in your life? If you call yourself a Christian, we're told by God's word that the devil doesn't own us. So why would he continue to talk to us? You're no longer his trophy. You're no longer the devil's possession. He takes real no joy in you because you are captured by Christ. But now you're on the other team playing as if you were in the brotherhood of Christ. But Satan. Is not through with you, we see here in this song. We highly doubt that he would ever leave us alone because he was never through with Moses. He was never through with Abraham. He was never through David or Paul or Peter causing doubt to ring out in their own lives ever present and tempting us that he can throw mud on Christ and call it his own. Think about this in this church specifically wouldn't the devil feel great to bring down members of Jefferson Park Baptist. Wouldn't it serve Satan's purposes to tempt Keith to look at things that he shouldn't look at defaming the office of the pastor or causing women to turn against men and become almost tribal leaders in the way that they function and for the Bible to be no longer taken seriously in this arena? Wouldn't it be great for the devil to long for people who are captured by Christ to now be muddied? with things that he does not own so that he can look at God and say, you call these people yours. You call these brothers and sisters of your son, yet they do things that they aren't to do. And all I had to do was just whisper. All I had to do was tell Eve, God kind of wants you to know evil as well as good so that you can see everything clearly. Evil is out there haunting you, longing for you, even in a whisper. Where is your God? Never denying that God is there. We want to know who knows the doctrines of God, possibly as much as anyone. It would be Satan himself. He knows what God is up to and he longs to take you away from God's glory so easily. Our emotions turn down and evil hatefully sets in. Pictured marvelously in Lewis's screw tape letters, one demon tells another about the reoccurring changes in mood and feeling in humans lives. The demon character calls this the law of undulation. The succession of valleys and peaks of spiritual response to life knowing that everyone will have high times and low times. And so at this point the demon was was teaching another demon about how you can creep in when there's a low point in people's lives. The demon insists about man as long as he lives on earth. Periods of emotional and bodily richness and livelihood will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty of the soul. This demon then instructs another to set foot and lure this soul from Christ in heavily satisfaction and fill it with thoughts of sadness and depression. If you can take something that is a brother of Christ and then tell him enough that he is not in Christ, if at a bad part in his life, he may start to believe that. This is why we don't beat each other up when we're having a bad day. If someone comes in and they look glum, you would never say, by the way, you look terrible. You never beat someone when they're down. But here we have conversation going on where the devil is wanting to seep in and while you're down tempting you and telling you what God is not so that you have a distorted view of the gospel. Do you often wonder into bad things when you feel down? Some are tempted to buy things when they feel sad. Some are tempted to eat more when they feel sad. Some gaze upon things that they shouldn't. And some just become so pathetically lazy because it's like, I'm having a bad day. I really will watch as many Redbox movies as humanly possible because it will only cost five dollars. So we see an absence of pursuing Christ just by tempting of the fact that you have nothing better to do. You feel sad. Don't pursue Christ. He's not even looking at you. He's not there. You can't feel him. You can't touch him. Where is your God? The Bible tells us the way of holiness is narrow and we shouldn't look lightly on evil that surrounds this path. It shouldn't surprise us that there are thorns outside of this narrow path and that there are gates that look more haughty than what we look at before. The problem is that we've gotten very good at listening and looking for things that we shouldn't because we become absent minded, lazy, perhaps, or just flat out sad. Talking to ourselves about the gospel here is a learned practice. Talking to ourselves about what God is and His truthfulness is a learned practice. Thinking about it. Think about it. You have so many bad habits in your life. It is very hard to break those habits. I remember reading that if you do something for 21 days in a row, then it becomes a habit. How hard is it to do something 21 days in a row? Especially if you have the opportunity to not do that all day long. It's one thing to say, I'm going to brush my teeth for 21 days in a row. That's a good habit to have. But it's another thing to say, I won't think distracting thoughts about Christ. I won't think bad things about other people. I won't think about tormenting things in my own soul. That's harder because you have so many things coming into your mind that you begin to listen about what is around you and you stop talking to yourself about what is true. And here we have an opportunity to see a Psalter who is going to remind himself again and again, even in the depths of despair about truth. He reminds himself again in verse 11, what he did in verse five. So we see a recurring pattern, and even in Psalm 43, if you read on, he has to remind himself, hoping God, for it's not just one time that we say hope in God and then the rest of the world takes care of itself. It's a daily practice. We remind ourselves through reading the Bible, which is why it's so encouraging that so many younger people in this church are trying to indwell their hearts with the word of God. So not only that they may not sin against thee, but that they will enjoy him forever for the presence of the Lord brought to us by his word is what is satisfying to us. But also he reminds himself not just of God's presence, but of God's hope because of God's presence once and for all. But what this means is that we are too slowly and consistently is that we are supposed to slowly and consistently show truth into our minds through the gospel and through who God is, for how we think about and talk about life around us will be planting truths in some way in our own hearts, bringing us to this third condition, this third perspective, that of God. So we've taken account of man and evil in this passage seeing that man is depressed from separation and longing to be in God's presence and that evil is tempting man to flee God and no longer taking refuge by telling him things that are not true. But what about God in all of this. Even sadness and depression, the Psalter, even in sadness and depression, the Psalter does. And what looks like to be a struggle, he reminds himself of God's holiness and ultimately God's ultimate satisfaction in the provision of his hope for his children. The Psalter reminds himself of God and tells himself of God by decrying the greatest phrase that we see in this passage, hope in God, and even though it's short, It is full of so much baggage that we can't help but meditate on it day and night. Hope in God for even though I feel depressed, hope in God for even though I feel frustrated, hope in God for even though I feel in despair. By letting his anxiety go from deep to deeper and allowing the voices of evil to tempt him, his soul remedy, his one remedy is to call out to God with truth. And in doing so, resting in the sanctifying work of God's gospel. Now, this this is not by the man's own doing, but is also another gift from God. God doesn't just save us, but he reminds himself. He reminds us of him day in and day out. And not to get mystical, because it's not like we're seeking God through images or it's not like we're seeking God through circumstances, but rather we're seeking God through what he's revealed himself to us, both in the love that we receive from others, but most definite in the truth that we receive from his written word. When feeling despair, it is often hard to just open the Bible and read it, reminding yourself of God's truth, because at some point we like feeling bad for ourselves. It's often easy to want to remain in control, even when we feel depressed, by trying to get ourselves out of that depression, by trying to cause of ways that will make us happy. Thereby, some people go buying things or they go eating things or they go and hang out with friends that they shouldn't. So they they want to get out of this depression by taking ownership of their life rather than giving it over to God and allowing him to speak into him. not just letting go and then going about their ways, but letting go of their ambition and calling God to pour into them. The Psalter tells himself to hope in God, becoming more aware of God's kindness, God's grace, God's mercy, God's sovereignty, just plans. We know that God will fulfill his promises and share his blessings with his children. It is sometimes just that we need to remind ourselves of this gospel, that in the beginning things were good and we caused them to be messed up. Yet because of his love for us, he sent his son to die on us. or to die for us on the cross. And by that substitutionary death, he then provides us with eternal life with him. Just reminding that we have to remind ourselves it can't be that bad. For God so loved the world that he gave his son for you. Yes, you will feel lowly. Yes, you will feel sad, but we live in a fallen world and our goal is to fight back against that. So keep in mind also what the Psalter reminds himself by choosing not to listen to the lies around him, but to teach himself again and again the word of the Lord. When the soul is troubled, we hope in God. And one way we can remind ourselves of God's good hope is reminding ourselves of God's grace in our lives, but also reminding others of grace in their lives. It is not often good to just when someone is feeling down to just converse with them again and again about it, but sometimes it's just good to just remind them of God's hope in their lives. Sometimes it's just good to just sit and listen to what they say and say the truth back to them. Notice how in this song, God is not interrupting this altar. Where are you, God? I'm right here. Why are your waves coming over me? You're a fool. It's not really that bad. I'm right here. I saved you for myself. But rather, he's letting the anguish flow out and then patiently reminding himself of the joy that we see in Christ. Verse 8 tells us, By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. The psalmist here remembers God's word and rehearses God's word, and he prays and sings God's word, and thereby making his troubled soul now a hopeful soul. Now, the fruit of this practice is is outwardly worship. This is why we come to worship, not so that we can be poured into, but so we can we can praise back to God, knowing that that sort of satisfaction and praying to God and singing to God and seeing what God is preaching to us through his word, that is what we take refuge in. It's not a consumption activity but rather it is an honoring activity that graces us as time goes on. Just to kind of give an illustration and hoping to kind of wrap these three different categories up. I lived in Alaska five four or five years ago where I was based out of Anchorage and I. Went to a very small church outside of Alaska probably or outside of Anchorage probably 30 minutes and it was a small church. It was it was a good church very good preaching on Sunday night. We have testimonies of people led by the pastor and the pastor once brought this lady up remembering it so vividly brought her up and she now at this point had two kids and her husband and he started asking her about what had been going on in the last five and 10 years of her life. And so they wanted to pry into her about what she had been hopeful, even in the midst of intense suffering, because they were going through a time of suffering in their morning preaching. So as he was asking her, she started telling the story of after two miscarriages, she finally became pregnant and made it to the last trimester and even to the birth. However, things had gone wrong in the birth, and so they had to take the child away and bring it into intensive care. And so she was resting there in the hospital bed with her husband. And at this point, the father of this woman came into the door with a blank face and she knew immediately what he was going to tell her. They had now lost their third child. And so as he was talking about this with this woman I mean there was not a dry eye in the house and the feeling of just her trying to express her despair was coming out and he was asking her What did you do then? What did you do then? What were you reminding yourself of? And after she announced that she had lost the third child and was just sitting there, he said, What did you do then? She said, I did the only thing that I knew how to do or what to do. I just laid back on my bed and started singing when peace like a river attends my ways, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever the thought that has taught me to say it is well, it is well with my soul. And then skipping to the first to the fourth verse, Lord, haste the day when our faith shall be sight. Reminding ourselves of the gospel, we know that we are in despair and that we need a savior. And don't you just know at that same time that Satan was whispering in that lady's ear, where is your God? You're married. You have no kids. Surely he doesn't love you. He's not providing for you. So not only do we see that we're in despair, but we see a taunting existence outside of us. But then we see her reminding herself of truth. Her reminding herself of the gospel that just because circumstances are happening does not mean that you are not within his presence for we remind ourselves of Jesus in the New Testament when he said it is better for us to have a spirit within us. So in feeling despair, we know that we have the spirit within us. So we always know that we are never without God because he is working within us. This is why it's so important when we teach our kids, you know, Christian nursery rhymes that you ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart. They won't get it then. But then when they're older and circumstances like this happen, they can remind themselves of the truths of the Bible ringing out. So we see God working within man despite evil, because God has promised to carry us through darkness to his light. And this is not by our own doing, but out of his love. So we remind ourselves what causes man's despair. This man is not just longing for the presence of his holiness, but also the symbols that came along with God's presence in the temple. He was not going to be satisfied by just meeting over coffee with God. He did just want to see him there, but one of the whole pomp and circumstance to be part of it. Yet, after the cross and viewing the cross from this side of redemptive history, we have no need for symbols to feel God's presence in our lives. We have no need for an altar in front of us. We have no need for a slain calf once a year for us. For our hope is in Christ, for he was slain and paid what was needed so that we can have hope, not just in trials, but also in joy, knowing that he is an overflowing fountain of love for us. Now, the only way that this affects you and me is by the work of Christ and having faith in what Christ has done for us. For Christ on the cross says the same thing that the psalmist says in this Matthew 27, he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Our Savior, by his death, bore the absoluteness of this psalmist anxiety. The idea of being separated from God is haunting. But what is the difference between man in this circumstance and Christ on the cross. The difference is that the psalmist was downcast and that Christ was crushed for the downcast. Christ was not being troubled on the cross. He wasn't only feeling pain and separation from his father but also the pain of death. of which he did not deserve for you and for me, paying the debts that we deserve and bearing the wrath that we should have bore. What is the difference between our anxiety and Christ's? We have no need to be anxious, for He is in control. We have no need to be anxious, for He died for us. We have no need to feel in despair, even though it may come, because Christ is our Savior. And we know that, because not only did He die for us, But he was resurrected in our place for he was a substitute for us on the cross in the same way that we substituted him for our own desires. So when we talk about a substitutionary atonement of Christ, it's because we place our desires in front of him and then he reverses that and becomes the substitute for us. Christ was crushed so that this substitution could take place and that we feel despair no more, but that now we can call out hope. Do not listen to the lies that your flesh will have you converse with over and over, but rather tell yourself the truth of the gospel. Tell yourself again and again the story of Christ who was crushed on the cross for you. Solomon says, hope in God, for I shall praise him my salvation and my God. In despair, we don't need to change anything about God. For attempting to enlarge Our view of the cross is false and just biblical logic because the extent of Christ's death on the cross was satisfactory for all time to the need of the father's wrath to be poured out on him. His cross is perfectly fine. So it's not that we need a bigger Jesus or a bigger God or we need God to be even more present than he actually is but rather we need to unclog ourselves from our mismarriage of what we have in the ideals of our own life. And we need to just get the false reality out of the way and view Christ and how he is in the Bible and through his gospel. His cross is perfectly fine, but our view is imperfect and skewed at many angles. In despair, we are to change how we see reality by telling ourselves of God's truth poured out on our lives. Isaiah 40 and other passages in the Old Testament, it says, but they who wait for the Lord. Shall renew in their strength. And later, it says they shall mount up with wings like eagles and they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. We know that this is not just poetry, because we know that this places itself out and what God has done for us by his life, by his death, by his resurrection, by his continued love for us in heaven, pouring himself over and sanctifying us and encouraging us and bringing himself closer to us by drawing ourselves closer to him. We see evidence of sanctification even in the pit of despair. For the devil wants to tempt us when we are high, because then he can throw things at us. But here, even in a bottomless pit, it feels like we have an opportunity to long for Christ, because frankly, we have nothing else to long for. Many of you have lost things in your life, whether a husband or children or finances. or a house you know if it's in a tornado or hurricanes on this part of the country if you have lost things and at some point when you lose everything you are given the ability to look around you and say what what is true in my life. What do I hope for in my life? What is my soul longing for again and again? It's the same thing like when you shut the TV off for the eight year old and he cries. Clearly, he loves the TV more than anything else. And here in our pit of despair, we can be encouraged by the fact that God is breaking down idols in front of us so that we can have a plain approach to him on his narrow path. So it causes us to rejoice even though we feel sad. It causes us to rejoice even though we feel in despair and are not able to do the things of which we feel called to do because there is nothing else in front of us except for the truth of Christ as his death and resurrection on the cross give credence to. So we are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair. Because we ought to consider him who endured such opposition for us as sinful men so that we will not grow weary and not be faint at heart. And so we sing the chorus. We repeat the ancient lines and we draw comfort when we are fighting against the bleak bog of despair, when God seems far away, because we ask ourselves, where is God? And with our faith in Christ, we know that he is in our hearts. And we need to look nothing or no longer elsewhere. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for what you do for us and teaching us about others who have gone through things that are discouraging. We thank you that you love us continually. We pray for those who feel discouragement from separation today. And that you will remind them of your gospel. And that we will be people who remind others about you. Both in evangelism and also just within this church through encouragement. That we will be able to sing the praises to others of what you have done for us. How great and awesome are your ways. For you are crowned with many crowns. You are the Lamb who now sits upon the throne where holy, holy, holy is shouted back. Remind us of yourself. Amen.