Hope in Your God!

Well, good morning to you all. It's good to see some familiar faces again. It's been a while since I've been here, but it's great to see you again. It's great to be here. And I bring you greetings from the saints at Hope Community Reform Presbyterian Church.

Please open in your Bibles to Psalm 42. Psalm 42. If you're using your Pew Bible, that's on page 502. Before I read this scripture passage, I just want to call attention to what's called the superscript of the text, that description that you find above the actual passage of scripture there.

And it says, to the chief musician, a contemplation of the sons of Korah. And what's interesting about that little description there is that most biblical commentators and scholars agree that while this says that it's a contemplation of the sons of Korah, they acknowledge that it can be translated a contemplation to the sons of Korah or for the sons of Korah. And the reason I point that out is because many biblical commentators and scholars believe that it was actually David who wrote this psalm and he gave it to the sons of Korah to be used in the worship of God. And the reason I point that out is because as we go through the sermon, I'm going to be referring to David thinking this or David doing that. And I didn't want you to be confused about why I'm talking about David when it was a psalm about the sons of Korah. But I believe David wrote this psalm for us.

So with that in mind, please give your attention to the reading of God's holy and inspired word. As the deer pants for the water brooks, 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 continually say to me, where is your God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. or I used to go with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept the pilgrim feast.

Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and from the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizer. Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls, and all your waves and billows have gone over me.

The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with the breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you, Lord God, for what it teaches us about you and how we are to respond in light of that, how we're to live in light of that. And Lord, we thank you that your word is a light to us, to give us hope in the darkness. And we pray that you would do that today through the power of your Holy Spirit He would work through the reading and the preaching of your word to turn our eyes and hearts and fix them firmly on the Lord Jesus Christ. We need him desperately and we love him deeply. And we pray that through our time this morning in your word, you would change us and that you would increase our faith in him and increase our love in your son, Jesus. And we pray, Lord God, that you would use this jar of clay for your glory's sake. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Are you surprised when life gets hard? Are you surprised whenever trials and difficulties come into your life? Maybe you're surprised that hardship and suffering has even come into your life.

And if that's the case, perhaps it's because you've bought into the American version of Christianity, which teaches us that true Christians aren't really supposed to suffer. We're not supposed to have hardship in our lives, although I suppose that's really not the case for you. You know well enough that we live in a fallen world and that even Christians suffer. Difficulty occurs. We're not exempt from difficulty and trial.

But when I ask you the question, are you surprised when life gets hard? Are you surprised when you face suffering? I wonder if you're surprised, not so much by the fact that it's actually happening to you, but are you surprised at the deep level of grief and turmoil you experience in your suffering, in your difficulty? Are you surprised? Are you caught off guard by how grief-stricken you can actually become? How much sorrow that you, even as a Christian, are experiencing? Did you know that your heart could fall so low? Or be so overwhelmed with despair?

Well, in the psalm before us here this morning, we see clearly that even believers suffer. But beyond this, we see that a believer can suffer to the point of even feeling forsaken by God. We see David in a very serious point of desperation here, of brokenness here.

And if you're broken right now, If you're in despair right now or become so at some point in your life, I don't want you to be surprised by that. And nor do I want you to be surprised at the deep level of grief that you can experience in your suffering. But I want you to see that this was David's experience as well. But I also want you to see that there's hope for you in your despair. There's hope for you in your despair. And that's my prayer that as we consider this psalm that you, along with David, in your desperation, will hope in your God. In your desperation, hope in your God.

Now I'm taking it for granted that you face difficulties in this life, that you face hardships and trials. We do live in a fallen world and life is hard. I'm assuming that. What I want to look at this morning is what happens to us when life gets hard, the result of difficult circumstances in our lives, the grief that we experience in light of that.

And I think one of the first things that we need to acknowledge and recognize is that grief and desperation increases when you feel a separation from God. Grief and desperation increases when you feel separation from God. Look at what David tells us in verses 1 and 2. As the deer pants for the water brooks, 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?

That's not known with utter certainty, the circumstances under which David experienced this depression and desperation that he did. Most biblical commentators believe that it was either while he was experiencing exile, fleeing from King Saul, which took about eight years of David's life, or while he was fleeing from his own son Absalom, which was about a month long, or at least a month before a resolution began to occur, In both cases, David is separated from the dwelling place of God, from the worship of God, which is why he longingly asks, when shall I come and appear before God?

He's been long separated from the visible expressions of God's presence. Now it's not as if God were not with him, right? God is everywhere. God was with David, yet the worship of God, the tabernacle, was the place where God's closeness and presence was keenly felt, especially by the Old Testament believer. And these difficult circumstances that David experiences here causes him to lose that intimate sense of God's presence.

And he describes this experience using the imagery of a deer thirsting for water. And the word that's used here by David, which we translate pants or thirsts, conveys more than just wanting something to drink because you're a little bit thirsty. Instead, it's used to describe a more desperate situation.

It's the deer being chased by the predator. It's running a long distance in the heat of the day and desperately needing something to drink before it collapses. If the deer doesn't get to water soon, it's going to die. The deer has nothing left. And so it's not a desire for water simply out of the light in the stream, the coolness and pristine stream.

But it's a desire born out of true exhaustion and true need. And this is David's experience. He desperately needs God. This is David's situation. His motivation at this point is not just the enjoyment of God because things are going so well in his life and he just wants to enjoy God more fully. No, that's not the case at all. He's utterly deprived of the experience and enjoyment and presence of God that if he doesn't get it, it's as if he is going to die.

Now, I'm rather certain that there's not some lunatic king or insurrectionist chasing you around and keeping you from the worship of God, right? And because of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, You can experience the closeness and presence of God in your life as an individual believer in a much deeper, more profound way now than those did of old. But that doesn't mean that there are not times in your life because of one circumstance or another when you feel distant from God. When you feel as though you are separated from Him. Times when that closeness and enjoyment just isn't there. Now you know theologically that nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, right? You know that. to be true, but sometimes in your life circumstances and trials occur that can leave you completely exhausted and cold and numb inside, and it's as though you are dying inside, and this can affect the way you perceive your relationship with God. He can feel so far away, can't He? And it feels as though you're dying inside without Him.

Honestly, this is how my wife and I felt, Danielle felt, shortly after our twins, Jonathan and Abigail, were born. Seven years ago now, our son had a considerable amount of medical complications that required him to remain in the hospital for the first four months of his life. And so my wife Danielle had to basically live in the hospital with him about an hour away from the rest of our family. And I was at home trying to take care of the rest of the kids while I was basically separated from her. And she was at the hospital looking after our son who was trying to hang on to life. And we were cold. We were numb inside.

And maybe you know what this is like too. The demands of your work are just weighing you down. You're tired, you're exhausted. It feels like you can't put one more foot in front of another. Maybe something you know is facing a serious medical issue and it's just weighing you down.

You feel the weight of it as you watch your loved one suffer or as you experience that pain and difficulty in your own body, in your own life. Or maybe someone you know has passed away, a dear friend or family member. Or maybe somebody that you know has been making your life unbearable or unbearable for someone you love. Or maybe it's a marriage that's on the rocks and is about to fall apart.

Whatever the case may be, there are things that have occurred, are occurring, or may occur in your life that bring you to a point of desperation and a feeling and a sense that God is not close by. Life is hard. And as if that were not enough, that sense of separation and desperation is made worse by the world and even our own hearts. That sense of separation and desperation is made worse by the world and even our own hearts.

Look at how David continues in verses 3 and 4. My tears have been my food day and night while they continually, while they continually say to me, where is your God? David expresses how extreme his grief really is here by comparing his tears to food. In other words, he's so grief-stricken he can hardly eat. Has that ever been your experience? You're so upset by something, you're in so much turmoil, your stomach's just in knots that you can't even bring yourself to eat anything. Because you're just so upset. This is what David's going through. This is his experience. And what was making it worse for him was the taunting of his enemies. Where is your God? Not that they were looking for him. They don't care about David. They don't care about David's God. But they're saying, David, we thought you were favored by God. We thought God loved you.

Why is God letting this happen to you? Why isn't God delivering you from your hard circumstance? Where is your God, David? I remember quite a few years ago, now after the mass shooting in California by Islamic terrorists, prominent government officials made statements along the lines of, our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this tragedy. It's a common thing to hear, right? Well, in response to those sentiments of prayer, the New York Daily News published on its front page, in big bold words, for the world to see, God is not fixing this. And that was the world saying, where is your God? Where is your God when tragedy happens? Where is your God when grief occurs in your life? You see, the world paints a picture of a God who's not there, or if he is, he doesn't care about your suffering.

He's certainly not going to do anything about it. And maybe people you know have said things like this to you in your moments of suffering. And it may not be as overt or as malicious as, where is your God? It could be something as simple and as benign or as a passing comment to you.

I can't believe God's letting this happen. And what that feels like to you is where is your God? We don't really need the world to ask us these kinds of questions, do we? Our own hearts do a sufficient job of asking the question, where is your God? Sadly, it doesn't take a whole lot of pain or trial or difficulty or suffering before our hearts begin asking those same poisonous questions too. Why is God letting this happen to me? Why isn't God fixing this? I thought God loved me. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me in this? I thought you loved me. Maybe I didn't even belong to you in the first place.

And you begin this downward spiral into this black hole of despair. Maybe you try to think of happier times to bring back some hope, like David does here in verse 4. When I remember these things, I used to go with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that kept the pilgrim's feast. But all that does is remind you of what was, but is no more. Those good times, those better times, they seem so far away.

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. It's hard to imagine you could feel anything like this ever again, any joy like that ever again. And so the question is, how do you survive this? How do you not spiral down completely into that black hole of despair?

Brothers and sisters, what is needed is a reorientation toward hope in God. A reorientation toward hope in God. And that is exactly what we see David pursuing in verse 5. A reorientation toward hope in God. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

You see, by God's grace, David recognizes that the world and his own heart are pulling him in the wrong direction. And friends, that's what the world and the flesh and the devil will do. They'll use your sorrow, they'll use your discouragement, they'll use your turmoil like a constant river current to pull you away from God. And you'll feel it every day as that current drags you and pulls you away from God.

And the only remedy for this is hope. Most specifically, hope in God. And so David begins arguing with himself. He confronts himself here and he purposely takes his mind, which has been set on things here below, and he sets it on things that are above. And he begins the process of pursuing hope. And this is no bootstrap effort on David's part here. He's not relying on his own strength. He knows there's no hope in himself.

Only hope to be found is found in God, which is why David says, I will praise Him for the help of His countenance. In other words, I will praise God for the salvation and help coming from His favor, from His face. And this is what you and I must do in our times of desperation. We must reorient toward hope in our God. And sometimes we can do this. We can argue with ourselves like David does here. Or we can read the Word of God and the Spirit of God through the Word can argue with us. And we can reorient toward hope in God. And this is what we must do in our times of desperation.

Friends, we need to recognize that sometimes things are so dark Sometimes things are so desperate that you may be so downcast and discouraged that you can't even argue with yourself. And how true the words become of you spoken by King Solomon in Ecclesiastes.

Woe to him who is alone when he falls for he has no one to help him up. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, someone can receive a blow so great that it spiritually knocks them off of their feet. And whether we think it's a significant blow in another person's life or not, let us be perceptive enough and gracious enough to go to those who are suffering. to go to those who are struggling and reorient them toward hope in God and not just expect them to straighten out their lives on their own. Remember, they may be fallen and alone and have no one to help them up.

What we need to bring to ourselves or receive from others in our desperation is a reorientation toward hope in God. And what I want to do now is just give you six ways in which you can reorient toward hope in God. Six ways in which you can argue with yourself or take these to other people and encourage them and reorient them toward hope in their God.

And the first one is this. It's to admit your brokenness. Admit your brokenness. We find that in verse 6. Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I will remember you from the land of Jordan, from the heights of Hermon, from the hill Miser. Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me." You can see in this verse that David admits his true condition here before God.

There's no false pretenses here. He's not trying to stand in his own strength. He's not trying to put his best foot forward. And friends, this is necessary for finding hope in God because true humility puts you in a position where you're willing to accept grace and help. And so no matter where David goes, he remembers to seek the Lord's grace because he's a broken man.

And we need to do the same thing. We need to admit the same when we're broken because it seems we have this strange notion that believers aren't supposed to be affected by their trials. that somehow we're not supposed to be affected by grief as if this showed some sort of lack of faith on our part or would somehow detract from the glory of God. And so what do we do?

We go around torturing ourselves by wearing a mask of smiles not to cover up the brokenness inside. Because true Christians are supposed to be happy all the time now, aren't we? We're not supposed to be suffering poorly. We don't want to be affected by our trials.

Well, let me ask you, do you suppose Abraham was unaffected by God's command to him to take his own son and sacrifice him? Do you think Abraham woke up that next morning and collected his things and took his son in his hand and sang tiptoe through the tulips all the way up Mount Moriah? Or do you think that as Abraham bound his son and laid him on the altar that he had a great, big, bright, shining Joel Osteen smile on his face before he plunged the knife into the chest of his own son? That's not true Christianity. True Christians are affected by their trials.

They feel grief and sadness and sorrow and it's okay. But you have to admit that brokenness. You have to admit it to God. You have to admit it to one another because you will not make it through this life or through your suffering and trials on stoicism or acting. But you must admit your brokenness. There's no hope to be found in those things. Only hope to be found in seeking the Lord, for He is the one who said through Peter, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He will lift you up in due time. Friends, admit your brokenness. Secondly, number two, acknowledge God's sovereignty. Acknowledge God's sovereignty, verse 7.

Deep calls unto deep, but the noise of your waterfalls, all your waves and billows have gone over me. David is an artist with his words. He paints another picture here of what it's like to go through the trials and sufferings that he's experiencing. He says it's like being under the heavy pressure of a waterfall. Can you imagine that? Imagine standing under a waterfall with the weight of the waves crashing down on your shoulders, pressing you to the ground. That's what it's like for him.

Or it's like being on the beach and having waves crash into you. Imagine being at the beach and you're trying to come out of the water and a wave hits you in the legs and causes you to kind of stumble a little bit as you're trying to walk up onto the shore. And just as you get your footing, another wave comes in and hits you in the legs again and you fall down onto your knees. And as you try to get up, another wave hits you in the side and pushes you down on your face. And then another wave comes and crashes over your head.

And just for a moment, you can't breathe. And you start to panic a little bit, right? It gets a little bit scary. You're trying to find purchase in the ground and push yourself up. And then another wave hits you straight in the face and water starts to go in your mouth and fill your lungs. It's a terrifying scenario. It's a panicking type of a situation.

He feels though you're drowning, and this is what David's trials feel like to him. And maybe you know what that's like. You've been through circumstances, you're going through a circumstance right now where it feels like waves are crashing down, water's crashing down on your shoulders, or waves are causing you to feel like you're drowning. That's a scary feeling. It's a hopeless feeling. But look at what David says here in verse seven. Whose waterfall is it? To whom do the waves and the billows belong? They belong to God. They belong to God and there is the hope. There is the hope, brothers and sisters.

These difficult circumstances brought into your life are not wild, random, senseless occurrences happening just because. And the difficult trials and circumstances that come into your life aren't ultimately at the hands of the evil one who seeks to destroy you, but it is the Sovereign Lord God Almighty who orchestrates all of the events in your life. And this Sovereign Lord who works all things after the counsel of His own will also works all things together for your good. Even those things which the world And Satan, mean for your ill and evil.

Friends, there's hope because God is in control. Acknowledge God's sovereignty. Number three, recall God's promises. Verse eight, recall God's promises. The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime. And in the night, his song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. You see what David's doing here. He's reminding himself of God's covenant promises and obligations to him. He's reminding himself that God has set his unbreakable covenant love upon him.

And no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how he might be feeling, no matter how bad things might get, nothing is going to make God break his vow of love toward him. And friends, nothing is going to make God break His vow of love toward you. Like this example of David, you too can meditate on these promises of God to you. Instead of constantly filling your minds with the worry and the anxiety and the minutia of your situation.

What am I going to do about this? Or what if this happens? Or what if that happens? Instead of filling your minds with these things and flooding your heart with these doubts and fears, do what the Apostle Paul commands in Philippians 4 or 8. Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just and pure and lovely, of good report, if there's any virtue, anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And what better things are there than the promises of God made to you to meditate on. What better things are there than the promises of God to point you toward hope instead of despair?

So make note cards. Keep notebooks. Memorize. Select promises of God's Word made to you as a believer and review them in your times of trial. But you've got to recall God's promises. Realize the instability of your own emotions. Realize the instability of your own emotions. Verse 9 and 10.

I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with the breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me while they say to me all day long, where is your God? David, what's going on here? How can we have what seems to be such a contrary expression of doubt in the midst of a hopeful reorientation, especially even right after a confession of God's covenant love? What's happening?

Well, the reality of it is just because you begin to regain or gain some hope and confidence in God, it doesn't mean that difficulties and trials and even Depression and despair can't creep back in at a later time and at a later date. Which is why I say you need to realize the instability of your own emotions. And actually what I'm calling you to recognize here is the fallenness of your own human nature. And believe it or not, if you haven't realized this yet in your life, your emotions are fickle things.

They're unstable things. They are not accurate gauges for the truth. The only sure gauge of the truth is the Word of God, which is truth itself. It is the only solid rock upon which we can stand. And so to base our lives on our emotions is to stand upon shifting sand.

Our emotions are volatile and ever-changing things. And so don't let emotional instability surprise you. Don't allow future difficulties or doubt make you call into question whether or not you ever had or can have hope. We see in David here the instability of our own emotions and so friends plan on it and plan for it.

Have God's promises ready. Have a brother or sister on speed dial that you can reach out to and call them to help reorient you toward hope in God, but you need to realize the instability of your own emotions. Number five, recognize that the Lord is your God. Recognize that the Lord is your God.

Look at the strong language that David uses about his relationship with God. In verse 11. These are verses 8, 9, and 11. Verse 11, he says, My God. Now this means that El Shaddai, God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, is your God. Verse 9, David says, God my rock.

Though the wind and the waves may toss you to and fro like a ship in a storm, you are anchored to a rock, to the rock of ages, and He will never break that bond. He will never let you go. You are secure to God, your rock. He will never let you go. Perhaps most powerfully, though, we find in verse 8, God of my life, God of my life. What does that indicate? Well, it shows us more than the fact that God is your God, but that you belong to Him. Your whole life belongs to Him. You're His precious treasure and gem. And He holds your life. He holds your soul. The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism says it beautifully. Read it in your time of desperation. It asks, what is your only comfort in life and in death? And the answer given is that I am not my own.

I am not my own, but belong body and soul and life and death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. who has fully paid for all of my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation because I belong to him.

Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him. Friends, do you want hope? Then know that your God is the God of your life. He's the God of your life. Sixthly and finally, we praise Him. He prays him.

Verses 5 and 11, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Verse 11, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of my countenance and my God.

Now, I realize that in a state of depression and desperation, praising God may not be the first thing that comes to mind. And it actually might be quite hard to do. But let me ask you, despite what you're feeling, is God not worthy of praise? Are the words spoken by Job not true when he says so powerfully, the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, but blessed be the name of the Lord?

Friends, no matter what circumstances you are in, you can still praise God for who He is and what He has done. And when you do this, your heart and your mind, they shift focus from you to Him. Even when you're singing a lament, like this one, because of your circumstances, the words, the truths that you speak, they reach down, as it were, and they meet you where they are, and they lift your heart and your mind up to heaven where Jesus Christ is enthroned. And friends, a heart and mind fixed on Jesus is not easily brought down or kept long in despair. And so you praise Him. You praise your God for who He is and what He has done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ.

These are just six ways in which you can reorient yourself toward hope or reorient someone else toward hope in God. And so in your desperation, use these and hope in your God. Because there's times when in your life you may feel a sense of desperation, even to the point where it feels like separation from God. And the world, in your own heart, they're going to conspire together against you to make things worse than they were before. And David, by the psalm, he instructs us by his own experience how we can reorient toward hope in God.

And we've seen some very helpful steps that we can take here. But friends, I need to be honest with you. David's experience alone is not enough to guarantee you hope. The fact that David experienced a measure of hope is not enough to assure us that the hope that he attained is possible for us. Which is why we cannot just look at this psalm and think about David. Or set our hopes on what David was able to experience.

But we need to look at Jesus Christ. Because this psalm is actually about Him. This psalm points us to Jesus Christ. This Jesus who, while He was on earth, experienced the suffering far greater than we will ever know. And who does not only sympathize with us in our weakness, but has gone beyond us in our desperation. Because it was Jesus Christ Himself who, while He hung on a cross for our sin, cried out, I thirst. That thirst that David began this psalm with. I thirst. A thirst not just physical, but that desperate thirst of one who has been separated from God.

You see, Jesus actually was separated from God. His words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, were a reality for him. Jesus was cut off from the presence of his Father, experiencing the doom of sinners, your doom, so that you could truly have hope.

Closing Prayer

So brothers and sisters, in your desperation, Hope in your God. In your desperation, hope in Jesus. Let's pray. Oh Lord in heaven, we thank you so much for your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you Lord God that you sent him into this world to put aside, to lay aside that close, intimate fellowship and relationship He had with you in glory, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, coming into this world, taking on the form of a servant, dying for us upon the cross for our sins, going beyond us in fear, beyond us in desperation and darkness, and yet you raised Him to life again. Because even through all of that desperation, He hoped in His God. He hoped in you.

And Lord, through faith, we are bound to this Christ. We are bound to this Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose again from the dead. And through the Holy Spirit, Lord God, grant us hope in this Jesus Christ. Fill our hearts with peace and hope and a sense of comfort and security in His arms. And we pray, Lord God, that You would write these truths that we've seen this morning upon our hearts, that we would flee to them when the world and our own hearts and even the evil one conspire against us to draw us away from You. Grant us comfort and hope, we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ.