Long for God

Good morning church. This week, much of our country, many of us paused, at least for a few moments, for the solar eclipse, this phenomenon of the moon passing right between our view of the sun. And one of the things I found interesting in the aftermath, maybe leading up to, but I saw them afterward, is all these articles kind of explaining what ancient cultures used to do with the eclipse. A lot of them had this sort of theory that some demonic animal was actually eating the sun. And some of them also, not surprisingly, thought it was a sign of divine displeasure. We've done something that upset the gods, and this is a sign that if we don't get our act together, bad things are gonna happen. Now, it's easy for us, 21st century, modern technology, where we can not only explain what's happening, but actually predict it. It's easy for us to write those explanations off as just silly, right? But I think very often even we can fall into the same trap of kind of trying to interpret what God is doing based on our circumstances. Haven't you ever been tempted to question God if something didn't go your way? When you watch someone else succeed, wonder why him or her and not me? When you look at the world around you and think, what's going on? What is God doing? The Bible assures us that that kind of thinking is always backward. Rather than trying to understand God's character in light of our circumstances, we have to interpret our circumstances in light of what we know to be true of God's character. And yet even for Christians, when we're anchored in what we know to be true about God, sometimes we can, sometimes or even often find ourselves in this tension, right? Where what we know to be true about God's character and what we are experiencing in our lives, they don't seem to be lining up. And that's why the Psalms, and especially the Lament Psalms, are so useful for us. Because in them we find God's inspired songs. These are words God has given us, written by people in difficult circumstances, and they lead us in how we can express ourselves appropriately in these moments, to reground us, ultimately, in the sure and steady foundation of our good and faithful God. That's what the Laments do for us. And so as you heard, we're in Psalms 42 and 43 this morning. If you're new to us, this is a series we've been going through several different kinds of Psalms throughout the summer. We're looking at these two today because most commentators seem to agree that it should be taken as a whole, as one unit. They're linked by that chorus you heard three different times. And what I hope for us to see this morning is that Christians must speak God's truth into their struggles because only God can save them. Christians must speak God's truth into their struggles because only God can save them. We hear the psalmist's chief concern repeated three times. Why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? His soul is cast down. In other words, he's in a state of depression, discouragement. He's troubled internally. And we'll spend a good bit of our time considering why that is. But before we get there, I want us to consider how something like this hits us. How do we approach a psalm like this? For some of us, I think it immediately has our attention. This describes what you are experiencing right now, right here, in this moment. We hear that and think, yep, that's me. I'm struggling. I'm discouraged. And if that's you, I'm just so thankful that you are here this morning. Maybe it was a battle for you to even be here, but praise God that you are here with us this morning. And I am confident that a loving God has brought you here with us to hear this word, to receive the comfort and instruction from God, and to leave here even this morning with a fresh hope and a fresh confidence in God. Now maybe this doesn't describe your current experience but it describes a time in your life that you can remember well, a season of despair or discouragement and praise God you're on the other side of it. If that's you, I expect this psalm will resonate with you this morning and you'll be able to worship even as you make this confession along with a psalmist. And then maybe for some of you in this room, this is completely foreign to you. You're not currently experiencing trials. You've never experienced anything like this. Maybe you're young. Maybe you've just had an easy life. Maybe you're just hopelessly optimistic. Well, if that's you, this psalm is for you too, and maybe especially for you. I think those, those who are like this can kind of come to a text like this and it sort of feels like the time when the stewardess is giving you instructions on the airplane about how to buckle your seatbelt, how to put on the mask, how to find the flotation device, all those things, right? Hardly anybody pays attention to that, right? And yet how many of us have had a moment of panic during the turbulence? wishing that the stewardess had gone over those instructions again, wishing we had paid a little bit better attention, right? How do I do the mask again? How does that work? How intense would it be if those masks ever did drop down or if the plane did have to make a water landing and you're there scrambling for the flotation device? You see, those instructions could save your life. And I want you to hear this this morning. Your ability to appropriate this psalm in your life and the lives of others, your ability to speak truth to yourself and to other people can be the difference between spiritual life and death. Now in saying that, I don't intend at all to raise doubts about the sovereignty of God and salvation, but one of the means that God shows us that he uses in order to preserve us and change us is the internal dialogue that goes on in each and every one of our own hearts. So hopefully that has your attention this morning. So if you're in that third group where this seems completely irrelevant, two reasons this psalm is for you. Number one, this psalm will prepare you for a season like this in your life. So in some ways, this is why we have the Psalms. It's kind of like military training, physical training, right? It's not to just arbitrarily see how fast you can get or how many push-ups you can do. It's so that in the moment when your life is on the line or your country's security is on the line, you have the strength you need to get over the wall or get across the field or whatever it is you need to do to complete the task, right? The time to test your strength is not in the heat of battle. You build up your strength so that in the battle you're ready. And similarly, the Psalms provide us the spiritual training in worship that we need so that we're prepared for the obstacles in life that come to us. But the Psalms do something else too. So we remember these are our Psalms. These are songs that were sung by the nation of Israel, community in corporate worship. And so what they do is they help us enter into the spiritual and emotional experiences of other people. So maybe you're not in despair right now, but you know someone who is. Consider these, these Psalms and especially the Psalms of lament. These are God's gift to you so that you can comfort and encourage people. You are equipped by God to counsel others with God's wisdom and God's grace. So with that in mind, let's go ahead and look at the psalm. And again, you wanna notice, important part of this psalm is that it has something we're used to in our modern songs, which is a chorus. Verses 42.5, 42.11, 43.5, and that's why we see this as one unit. It's a song that's about despair and hope. So we'll look at three reasons for the psalmist's despair and the answer of hope. So we'll look at isolation, oppression, and injustice. First, let's consider the psalmist's isolation. 42, one to two, as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? So our psalm begins with an intense longing. The deer here is a wild animal in a drought. He's gone a long time without water. He's desperate. He's driven to seek it out. Nothing else matters. All he can do is take step after step toward that stream, no matter how far away it is. And so the psalmist watches that thirsty deer walk across the desert and he sees himself. He says, that's how I feel. I'm thirsty. I'm longing for the living God. And we see that in the question he asks, when shall I come and appear before God? Now, according to verse six, he's somewhere well north of Israel. We don't know why, but for some reason he's not able to gather with God's people in worship. And we see him reflecting upon this in verse four. 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 things used to be. It tells us that this is one of the sons of Korah, the author of this psalm. These were Levites, a special tribe, a special part of the tribe who served in various ways to facilitate Israel's worship. And the psalmist remembers this role with fondness, with longing. It was a source of great encouragement to him. He loved doing what he did. But those days are gone. Now the psalmist, he's not angry here. He's not apathetic. He's desperate. His chief concern is the apparent absence of God. He longs for God. He wants to worship and praise God, and yet he's prevented from doing so because of his circumstances. I wonder if that resonates with you this morning. Do you have a deep longing for God that you feel is going unmet? Now, for some of us, this is a wake-up call, that we ought to have this kind of desperate, thirsty, dear longing for God. For some of us, it's so easy to take for granted the blessings and the freedom that we enjoy. We just serve ourselves rather than God. But for some here in this room, I bet this complaint sounds really familiar. You want your relationship with God to be better than it is. Maybe you look back to a time in your life when it was better. Maybe you were active in discipleship or evangelism in college and all you can do now is just barely hang on to keep your job or to keep your kids from killing each other. Maybe you used to teach, but now no one seems to really value your insight. Maybe you used to have lots of deep, encouraging relationships, but now you wonder if anyone really cares. If that's you, let your voice join the psalmist this morning. Second, we see the problem of opposition. So we see that the psalmist is isolated from the regular worship of God, the community of faith, but he's not alone. He has enemies. We see that in verse 3 and 10. He has these people who mock him all day long saying, where is your God? Who are these enemies? We don't know exactly. But we see that first and foremost, they're enemies of his faith. And so the psalmist's inner turmoil is compounded by the ridicule of these evil people. They worship idols. They don't worship the true God and they mock him for his faith in God. And this causes him great distress. He says, my tears have been my food day and night. So we have the deer over here dying of thirst while the psalmist is gorging himself on his own tears. In verse 10, their words are a deadly wound in his bones. Their constant and incessant taunting is not having a mere superficial effect, right? This is no scratch. They're having the spiritual equivalent of broken bones. They're immobilizing to him. We have heard regularly sticks and stones break bones, but words never hurt. Well, the psalmist doesn't agree. Their words have sunk in deep and caused him great harm. Now again, this may speak to some of you this morning. Some of you may be struggling in your faith. Some of you experience regular persecution from family or co-workers or teachers. They accuse you before God. They raise scientific or philosophical or moral objections that you don't feel qualified to answer. They introduce doubt. They leave you questioning. They make you feel small and foolish because of your faith. Maybe they know your biblical stance on something like marriage, or sex, or gender, or race, or authority, or money, or something else, and they marginalize and exclude you because of that. You might know that Paul tells Timothy, 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. And yet the constant barrage of this attack without the corresponding help and support leaves you lacking confidence in questioning God. Maybe for some here, it's not outright persecution that's affected you, but still the words of others have had an adversarial effect on your soul. Maybe they're from other Christians, maybe even from people in this room. They've cut deep and they've been harmful. They've left you questioning yourself or your relationship with others. Well, this psalm is for you too. This leads us into our third complaint, which is injustice. So the complaints themselves, the isolation, the oppression, they aren't the only problem. The real problem is the apparent absence of God. And so we see the psalmist wrestling with this in verses six and seven. 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 of your breakers, all of your waves have gone over me. He acknowledges his condition, I'm downcast, and he seeks to remember God. And yet here, instead of the absence of God, he experiences the overwhelming presence of God's discipline. There was once a drought and now there's a flood. So perhaps he's there at Mount Mazar, somewhere around the headwaters of the Jordan River. He's looking out into that water. He sees the water moving over rocks, cascading there, and he sees a picture of his own experience, being crushed under the weight of the water, being beaten by waves at the ocean. He rightly knows that God could be protecting him, could be doing something, and he's not. And because he's not, this experience of persecution is as if it's coming from God himself. We see the psalmist's internal conflict in verse eight. 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 he knows what is true about God. He knows that God's love is steadfast, that it's never failing. He's even singing the right song. If you remember back to Psalm 77, we saw what happened when we choose to sing our own song. This man is fighting to believe what is true about God, but he's losing. And so when he begins to pray, his heart comes out. Why have you forgotten me? Now this moves into a plea for God to act. So in chapter 43, one to two, he says, vindicate me, oh 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? vindicate me, defend me. This is an ungodly people. God, why are you letting them attack and dominate me? I'm seeking your help. Why have you rejected me? You can see the psalmist progression here. God, where are you? God, why have you forgotten me? God, why have you rejected me? It's gotten more active and more personal. You can imagine a child coming out of school, scanning the car line. Mom, dad, where are you? After a few minutes, no sign. Mom, dad, have you forgotten me? And then finally they pull into the parking lot, come up to the curb, but before the child can get in, they speed off. Why have you rejected me? That's how the psalmist feels. God could be intervening. He could be helping him and he's not. And in many ways, this is the chief problem, isn't it? It's not just that there are issues, but that God is failing to intervene in the issues. If God is all powerful and all good, why is he allowing these bad things to happen to someone who wants to be faithful to him? In a lot of ways, that's the question that each of us has to face. The chorus that's repeated three times captures this tension the psalmist is feeling. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Three times he repeats that chorus. His circumstances have his gaze downward. He is cast down. It's created this inner turmoil that's led him to a state of despondency, of discouragement, of depression. And again, all of us have been, or are, or will be in this position. Broken, discouraged, questioning God. And this is not something that's just true for non-Christians. Christians find themselves here. For some of us, it may be a singular event. For some of us, it may be occasional or seasonal. For some of us, it's the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute struggle that dominates our existence. And thankfully, brothers and sisters, this psalm has more to say to us. So we see the psalmist's reply in 3 and 4 of chapter 43. Send out your light and your truth. 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. This is the turn in the psalm that makes all the difference for the psalmist and for us. The answer to his dilemma, to the apparent absence of God, is God's light and God's truth. they will lead the psalmist back into the spiritual presence of God, where he can resume his proper worship. You see, the psalmist has come to realize that the problem is not with God, but with himself. And so he cries to God for help. He is self-deceived and ignorant, so he needs God's truth. He is blind, and he needs God's light. The conflict inside of him and the oppression outside of him have left him confused, and only God's gracious intervention can save him. God's revelation is the psalmist's only hope. The psalmist has come to understand that though he is far from Jerusalem and the temple, though he is in enemy territory, though he's facing intense persecution, he can still worship if God reveals himself. And so he's caught on to something that is made clear to us in the New Testament. We see this really clearly in John 4, with Jesus interacting with the Samaritan woman at a well. And he tells her that her soul is thirsty, just like that deer in the desert. that only God can quench her thirst, but rather than seeking Him, she's been seeking it through relationships with men. She's been married five times and she's now living with someone who's not her husband. And she rightly perceives that Jesus is talking about worship. And so she asks Him where she should be worshiping. And Jesus responds that the Jews had it right, but that the question is no longer about the right place, but the right way. That God wants us now to worship in spirit and in truth. Worship is not about our external performance, but about inner transformation by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus quenches soul thirst by creating in us an internal well that springs up to eternal life. Elsewhere in John, Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father apart from him. He says that he's the light of the world, that whoever follows him will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So Jesus tells us he's the source of soul thirst quenching water. He's the source of soul illuminating light. He's the source of soul instructing truth. So Jesus exposes our need for God, our idolatry in worshiping things other than God. He shows us our sin, that our greatest problem is internal and that the solution is external. He shows us that we love evil rather than good. He shows us the truth that we were made for God, but that we've rejected God. He shows us that our problem is that we're turned inward, that we're focused on ourselves. We are downcast. Our perspective is self-ward. But Jesus is more than that. Three times the psalmist interrupts his prayer, his conversation with God, to address himself. He asks himself a question and then he responds. His question addresses his depression. Why? Why are you cast down? Why are you in turmoil within me? And Jesus himself quotes or at least alludes to this psalm in the Garden of Gethsemane when he tells his disciples his soul is sorrowful even unto death. You see, Jesus was looking into the coming suffering on the cross, being forsaken by his father, the very thing we looked at last week in Psalm 22, and he was already being crushed under the weight of what he knew was coming. Jesus knew that he would experience the true darkness of the soul, being 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 being mocked and beaten and crucified. He experienced the greatest injustice the world has ever or will ever know as the previously unbroken love between the Father and the Son of all eternity was interrupted. Jesus would ask, God, where are you? God, why have you forgotten me? God, why have you rejected me? And God's answer was silence. God did reject him because it was the only way for him to forgive sinners and maintain his perfect righteousness. So God treated his son like a sinner in order that he could treat sinners like his son. And brothers and sisters, that is the gospel. We deserve judgment because of our sin and God offers forgiveness and acceptance to all who will ask for it on the basis of what Jesus has done for us. We know that this work was completed because God raised Jesus from the dead and ascended him to his own right hand. So friends, this is the most wonderful and urgent message you can ever hear. If you don't have confidence in God and your relationship with God this morning on the basis of what Jesus has done, please don't leave here without talking to somebody about it. Jesus is the light and the truth that lead us into the presence of God, that restore our relationship with him, that lead us to worship God anew. And so the psalmist, catching a glimpse of this, can interrupt his complaints and three times speak truth to himself. We're going to consider how the gospel addresses each of these complaints. But first I want us just to stop and consider something. The psalmist interrupts his prayer to God to speak to himself. Do you see that? So 1 to 4, his complaint to God, he starts with you in verse 1. But then in verse 5, he turns to my soul. And this happens again in 6 to 11 and again in chapter 43. He interrupts his prayer to God to talk to himself about himself. Now before you write me or the psalm or the Bible off as crazy, let's just consider how normal this is in our human experience. We all talk to ourselves all the time. We're doing it right now. See, I caught you. You're interacting with what I'm saying or you're daydreaming. I'm wondering what you're thinking about what I'm saying. We're constantly talking to ourselves and a large portion of what we're saying is about ourselves and our experience. Author Paul Tribb, I think helpfully points out the importance of this reality. And he says, no one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do. And so as I alluded to earlier, there may be no more important skill for your spiritual survival than learning how to talk to yourself about yourself. How to interrupt your own inner dialogue and speak truth into confusion and self-deception. We have to learn to stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves. And so let's consider how the psalmist does this in response to each of his complaints. So in response to isolation, how does the gospel address isolation? Circumstances prevented the psalmist from worshiping as he once did, and this led him to suppose the absence of God, to feel distant from God. And yet in the chorus, he reminds himself that he will again praise God. He need not fear that God has gone away forever. Last week, everyone's attention seemed to stop and focus on the eclipse, the apparent disappearing of the sun. And for the psalmist, he seems to acknowledge his circumstances as a sort of a theological eclipse. God, it seems like you're absent for the moment. It's discouraging so much so that I'm crying day and night. All I can think about is how good things used to be compared to how terrible they are now. But I know this is not the end of the story. I know you haven't died. You haven't disappeared. I know that I shall again praise you. One of the great realities for us is that God will give us fresh reasons to praise him. Life may look very different now than it used to. Your relationship with God may take a different shape in a different phase of life, but it doesn't mean that God has changed. It doesn't mean that he's any farther away than he ever has been. And the psalmist here is able to address what could be a false identity. He was once a worship leader, a prominent member of the assembly. But he can distill that down to its most fundamental and true form, is that he's a worshiper. This may be a hard season, but God is faithful. And even though it's hard to understand right now, I know I will praise him again. That's what he says to himself. It reminds me of Psalm 126, five, that says, those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. It's not that sowing seed in itself is hard or difficult work. It's that there's a season to sow and your own personal sorrow can't stand in the way of doing what you have to do in the moment. If you don't sow in the right season, you won't reap at the time of harvest. And so you sow even in tears, knowing that those tears won't last forever. If you sow now, there will be a joy-filled harvest in the future. And the psalmist won't let those glory years, how wonderful everything used to be, so discourage him in his present circumstances that he loses his hope in God. So what about you? What are the obstacles in your life that keep you from a confident hope in God? Is your lack of experience of good right now causing you to doubt the goodness of God? Do you find yourself thinking often about the way things used to be? how much better they were in that place or in that relationship or that situation, telling yourself that you're all alone, that things aren't as good as they once were, that they never will be good again. Friend, identify those things in your life and speak truth to them. God's worthiness of our worship is not first because of what he does for us, but because of who he is. And because of who he is, he will not fail to give us new and fresh reasons to praise him. So learn to interrupt that dead end reminiscing with the hope of the gospel, the fact that Jesus was abandoned so that we would never be finally abandoned. We believe in a God of resurrection, that our weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. And let those realities lead you to fresh hope and fresh confidence that you will again praise God. How does the gospel address opposition? The psalmist faced real enemies of his faith, and we do too. For some of us, those are people who provoke us, who persecute us. For a lot of us, those enemies are spiritual. They introduce lies that lead us to doubt the presence and goodness of God. They affect us deeply. That was the psalmist's experience, so that he was going about mourning as with a deadly wound in his bones. And yet he talks himself out of that. Into the confusion of all these voices, he speaks to himself. And so we need to see a couple of things here. First, our own voice, your voice, my voice is the loudest, right? The psalmist is hearing lots of stuff. We're all hearing lots of stuff. Whether it's actual voices speaking to us or it's our own inner faculties, we're constantly hearing things. And in some ways it's as if our minds are echo chambers where the things that we've heard and thought just keep coming back up again and again and again. We're constantly hearing, but if our voice is the loudest, then what we say to ourselves really matters. We have control over what we say to ourselves. We don't have control over what we hear. We can't help but hear what's around us. We don't really have control over what we think either, do we? A lot of times things just pop into our heads. But what we have control over is what we do with those things we hear and the things we think. We can let those thoughts run or we can speak truth to them. And the discipline that the Psalmist is modeling for us is that we stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves. And so he says to himself, hope in God, which in some ways is to say to those other voices, shut up. And you can feel his experience, can't you? Circumstances are not going well, he's genuinely seeking God and still things don't seem to be going well. And so the voices around him seem to be constructing an accurate view of what's happening, right? They're constantly mocking him. Where's this God you claim to know? So much so that he begins to question himself. God, have you forgotten me? But he addresses that with his own self-talk. Hope in God. And I think this brings us to another related point, which is the value of song. Let's remember that this is a song. This is a chorus born out of his own intense personal experience that became an anthem for the worshiping nation of Israel to shake them out of vicious cycle of unbelief and to reorient their hearts to God. And so let's just acknowledge that music has a unique power here. As 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. It's why the music of our childhood and youth can have such a powerful effect on us. Music gets deep inside of us. And music also facilitates memorization. Music gets words, content, truth inside of us. So even if it's words we don't know or understand, if you spend time with kids, you'll realize this. They can sing songs they have no idea what they mean. And this, in fact, is one of the reasons that we think a children's choir is such a good use of our time on Wednesday night, because it sows seeds of truth that we hope will blossom into faith later in their lives. So because he recognized the power of music, the psalmist developed this little chorus to sing to himself in the midst of his struggles. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. What about you this morning? If we were to wake up to tomorrow's news that there had been a security breach and a leak, And that every thought from your head, everything that you'd ever said to yourself in secret was suddenly available for everyone to see and hear. What would we think? What themes would we see? What would we conclude about the God you claim to worship? I assume for most of us, that's a pretty sobering question. What are the voices in your head saying? What are the words of others that have profoundly affected you, that have left soul scars that always seem to pop back up? As the people of God, we've got to learn how to harness our self-talk, how to grab ourselves by the collar and say things to ourselves that foster faith and hope and confidence in God rather than fear and anxiety and discouragement. And friends, what better words can we speak to ourselves than the gospel? We've got to tell ourselves that we are loved and chosen and accepted by God and Christ before the foundation of the world, that Jesus is so committed to us that he laid down his life for us, that our identity is in him and not in the praise or criticism of man. I'd suggest that we've already done one of the best things that we can do for ourselves, which is sing. When we sing good and true songs, we store up truth about God that can become fuel for us to feed our worship throughout the week. That's why we devote so much time to singing on a Sunday morning. This is also a call for us to consider how deeply our words affect others. See, the goal for us as Christians is that we're so filled with the gospel that it filters and shapes our own inner self-talk. But not only that, but it also shapes our interactions with others and therefore their self-talk. So it's not just the buoyancy that keeps us from sinking in life's storms, it's also the life preserver that we throw out to others who are in need. Consider, brothers and sisters, that anything you say to someone else, anytime you open your mouth, those words, good or bad, could be something that takes deep root in a person's soul. Those are words that could echo in their hearts, in their minds, again and again and again. This tells us that in order to minister effectively, we've got to listen for clues about the self-talk of others. What is this person assuming about himself, about God? How can we seize those revelations as moments of ministry to graciously bring God's truth and his light to bear on their souls? Finally, we see how the gospel addresses our sense of injustice. As the psalm progresses from the absence of God to the apparent rejection of the psalmist, there's this growing sense of injustice. God is not merely aloof, but he is actively against him, so it would seem. And yet the psalm has this interesting twist that we looked at just a moment ago. The sense of injustice doesn't lead to the smiting of the psalmist enemies, does it? Sometimes we see that elsewhere in psalms. But here, it's God's light and God's truth that deliver him. God provides illuminating truth that cuts through the lies of his enemies and their ignorance and restores the psalmist to worship. And we see here that his greatest problem is not his enemies, it's not his circumstances, it's himself. It's how he's responded to his enemies and to his circumstances, how they've temporarily caused him to lose his perspective on God and to focus only on himself. And so God's salvation is not one of mighty acts of deliverance in this case, but it's one of soul transformation. This makes all the difference for the psalmist. Once God acts to intervene, the psalmist knows he will again worship because he sees himself for what he is and he sees God as he should. That restores him and renews him in his worship. And brothers and sisters, this is often how God works in us. Sometimes God is more glorified in changing us rather than changing our circumstances. This is his kindness to us because our circumstances are not our biggest problem. We can know that because we can look at how we handle blessing and prosperity, right? How many of us can honestly say that when things are going well, we're just overflowing with praise and thanksgiving because all the good that God has done for us? No, most of us normally think of God as a waiter, right? We're grateful for his service. We want it to be prompt and attentive, but not intrusive. Keep the glasses full. We'll call you if we need you. Thank you very much. But friends, the God of the universe, has not come to us to be our waiter. He came to address our spiritual blindness with sight and our spiritual deception with truth. And so God works to change the psalmist and not his circumstances. And this makes all the difference. He moves from despair to hope because he's now rightly oriented in his posture toward God. Notice the personal language in the psalm. He starts with a longing for God. He's taunted with the language, your God. And he refers to God as my salvation, my rock, my exceeding joy, my God. And brothers and sisters, this is an invitation for us. We can know God this way. not just know facts about him, but know that he is our God, that he is our perfect heavenly father who loves us, who protects us, who delights to do good for us, who created us to be happy in him. This is a God so committed to us that he did not spare his own son, but sent him to die for us all. Friends, the greatest injustice the world has ever known was orchestrated by a wise and loving God in order to maintain his perfect righteousness and still forgive sinners. And when we realize that we are the beneficiaries of such injustice, it changes us. It changes our mentality. We stop focusing on all the things we're entitled to and we start thinking about how we can worship God in practical acts of service. We don't care about bringing justice to ourselves, we care that we bring it to others. We stop calculating the benefit we're going to get and we freely give of ourselves because we know that through Jesus we're going to come out ahead no matter what. We believe that it's better to give than receive, that the last shall be first. And so we set about this life to outdo others in showing and not receiving honor. And this knowledge transforms us in the midst of our circumstances. It exposes the idolatry of our hearts, shows how we love things and people, and how that love chokes out our love for God. This knowledge brings us back into a right relationship with the God who loved us when we were unlovely, who was committed to us when we were ignoring Him, who forgave us of our rebellion against Him. And so, brothers and sisters, let us join this chorus this morning. Now, I don't mean at all to minimize the state of despondency. If this wasn't an ongoing battle for us, the psalm wouldn't be here. This may describe the rest of your life as a Christian. Some of you may be praising with the lyre until Jesus comes back. Some of you may be up and down. The point, friends, is not your experience at any given moment. The point is the urgency of speaking truth into that experience, speaking the gospel to yourself, the absolute trustworthiness of God to finish the good work he started, his utter reliability, his unquestionable love to us in Jesus. That's what you gotta say to yourself. And we remind ourselves of that truth in hymns like God Moves in a Mysterious Way. God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain. And so friends, let us resolve to say to ourselves and to each other, every time this feeling of despair starts to come from this day forth until Jesus returns to bring us home. Why are you downcast? Oh, my soul. Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God. For I shall again, praise him my salvation and my God. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we come to you this morning, acknowledging that even as we hear a psalm like this, even as we were reminded of the gospel, still, for so many of us, this is a fight, this is a battle. God, we entrust ourselves to you this morning, and we pray for the strength that you would give us to fight, to hope in you, to trust that you are indeed our salvation and our God. We pray that as the psalmist prayed, you would send forth your light and your truth. You would illuminate our blindness. You would correct our self-deception, and you would lead us in the right worship of you. Change us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.