Fighting for Hope

A few years ago, we went river rafting, and we came to a

portion of the river where, you know, we're enjoying Class 3

Rapids. And then all of a sudden, the

river widens. It gets wider, it gets much

deeper, which meant that the flow became much slower, which

is horrible for river rafting. And we went to Jennings.

Maybe you remember this Jennings when we went to Arkansas.

It's horrible for river rafting when the river slows down, but

it's great for reflecting on passages like Matthew 823, which

when Jesus is calming a storm, it says he rose and rebuked the

winds in the sea and there was a great calm.

Or to quote another passage of Scripture, the sea became like

glass. I remember that.

It gets the same imagery of Psalm 23 when David writes that

we were led by the Good Shepherd and were promised to be LED

beside still waters and to have our souls restored.

Think of that imagery, this imagery, and now compare that to

the imagery of Psalm 42 where the psalmist says he's drowning

in an ocean and he's floating on flotsam and jetsam and the the

Breakers are crashing over him. And 1 deep wave calls to another

deep wave as they coordinate together to drown him.

And verse 7 says deep calls to deep at the roar of your

waterfalls, all your Breakers and your waves have gone over

me. And Breakers and waves in the

Bible are metaphors and imagery for deep distress and spiritual

depression. They're not like our metaphors

when we sing today of of water and the ocean and the ocean

Breakers it. It's grace and mercy washing

over us in Scripture. It's overwhelming distress.

It's poetic cries of spiritual depression.

That's where we find ourselves in Psalm 42.

It mirrors the language of Job when he's thrown overboard in

the raging sea and he says and or in Jonah.

I mean Job wasn't thrown over, Jonah was.

Jonah says chapter 2 verses 3 to 5.

The flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows

passed over me. The waters closed in over me to

take my life. The deep surrounded me.

It sounds like 42 verse 7 of Psalms deep calls to deep at the

roar of your waterfalls. And you go back to the the more

ancient commentaries and the ancient commentators, they would

translate waterfalls as waterspouts, which if you know

what that is, tornadoes in the deep and they're unbroken

columns of water spanning from the sea to the clouds.

He says your waterspouts Thunder and roar and the sama says, and

that's where I am speaking spiritually, metaphorically.

That's where I am now in my own depression.

And if you'll turn to Psalm 42, you'll say you'll see that the

the inscription says the Psalms of Korra, a Maskel of the sons

of Korra. But many believe that these are

still written by David. Because if you go to the end of

book two of the Psalms, it reads this way.

The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

If this is true, if David wrote this book, then that means it's

the same pin that wrote Psalm 23 saying he leads me besides still

waters, he restores my soul is the exact same pin that wrote

Psalm 42. All your Breakers and your waves

have gone over me. My soul is cast down within me.

And as Christians, we have to embrace both of these as part of

our Christian experience. And when you talk to your

Christian friends on a surface level, you would think that most

of the Christian experience is spent in the vein of Psalm 23,

right? Bright and happy and optimistic.

But you know that there's these rare moments when you have the

time and you have the energy and you have the space when one soul

can truly open up to another soul and you have a moment of

deep vulnerability. I've never heard somebody say,

well, actually, as a matter of fact, everything's really good

right now. And the Lord of Glory has

actually resolved all of my problems.

I've never heard it. What you hear instead is the

lyrics of Matt Boswell that we just sang Lord from sorrows

Deep. I call what you hear in moments

of vulnerability. Is there storms within my

troubled soul? And I have a lot of questions

that don't have answers. And I'm torn and I'm ruined from

the fall and my hope is shaken. And his Breakers are crashing

over me. And if you were honest with

yourself and if you were honest with others, you would say, this

is frequently my Christian experience.

This is regularly true for you. And I was once at a Christian

conference, a a huge Christian conference with many thousands

of believers, many thousands of pastors, and a very popular

preacher got up and in front of everybody and declared that

there's no such thing as Christian depression.

And he says, in all my years of being a Christian, I've never

been distressed. I've never been depressed.

And you shouldn't either. And I remember in that moment,

I've never been more disconnected listening to a

preacher than I was in that moment.

And, and with those words, this pastor had disconnected himself

from from me and from every other believer in the room.

I've never heard a Christian talk like that.

I've never been depressed. I've never my soul's never been

cast down. I think of King David, David

says. How long must I take counsel in

my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

I think of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, he says in Lamentations

He's been depressed so long that he forgot what it feels like to

be happy Job. My soul is weary of my life,

Spurgeon. I find myself frequently

depressed. He said if you were to go

downstairs in the bookstore, there's a book called Spurgeon

Sorrows down there. There's a whole corpus of

literature that talk about the the, the sorrows of the Prince

of Preachers. CS Lewis wrote a book called The

Grief Observed when he was wrestling with the sorrow and

the doubt that came after his wife's death.

Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane said my soul is very

sorrowful. So if we aren't supposed to

describe these as spiritual depression, then I don't know

what would fall in that category.

And the word depression means literally to press down.

It's what the word literally means to press down.

And you can look to Psalm 42, verse 5, verse 11, the chorus

Psalms 42:5

that comes up. If Psalm 42 were a song, and I

think that it is, the chorus is verse 5 and 11, That's the

meaning. It says, why are you cast down?

Oh my soul, why are you pressed down within me?

And you, you have felt this. You all have felt this.

Your circumstances are difficult.

You're fighting for hope and the glory is that the scriptures do

not leave you without a testimony.

The scriptures speak to every experience.

They speak to this experience and the psalmist gives you a

faithful way to respond. Let's read that the Psalm as a

whole together. Psalm 42 verse one says 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?

My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me

all the 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 in the chorus.

Why are you cast down on my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my

God. My soul is cast down within me.

Therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Herman

from Mount Mitzar. Deep calls to deep at the roar

of your waterfalls. All your Breakers in your waves

have gone over me. By day the Lord commands His

steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.

A prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have

you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of

the oppression of the enemy, as with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all the day long,

where is your God? Why are you cast down on my

soul? And why are you in turmoil

within me? Hoping God, for I shall again

praise him, my salvation and my God.

The psalmist responds to the depression in his soul with with

four responses. The first one comes in verses

one to three. His soul longs for God.

This is involuntary. If you're a believer, your soul

longs for God. When the pressures of the world

come, it brings you nearer to God, not farther away.

You long more for his stability and his presence.

It's involuntary. Your soul longs for God.

The second response, verses four and eight, he pours his soul out

to God. This is prayer.

His response is prayer. This is voluntary.

This takes forethought. This is action on your part.

It's remembering, it's singing, it's praying.

Voluntary response. The third response, verses 5 and

11, He speaks to his own soul. As you'll see, this is something

that you can do, and I can do another voluntary response.

And then 4th and finally verses 6 to 10, his soul laments.

This is another involuntary response.

When trouble comes, we can't help but bring that trouble to

the Lord. And there's an appropriate way

to do this. Our soul longs for God.

Or we can look at this as if it's your response because it is

a faithful response for you. When distress comes, when

depression comes, when you're sorrowful, your soul longs for

God. Your soul is poured out to God

and prayer. You speak to your own soul and

your soul laments. And I want to start where the

psalmist starts in verses into three.

Let's read them again. You are to respond with your

soul longing for the living God. He says 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, while

they say to me all the day long, where is your God?

As you go through this Psalm, you're going to see there's a

lot of keywords. There's a ton of keywords in the

passage that the first one, the word soul is used over and over.

And these keywords, I mean, with any biblical text teach you

what's important. They teach you the meaning.

And there's no confusing what this Psalm is about.

You'll see. And part of how we know that is

this keywords. The word soul is used five times

over and over and over and over and over.

There's a refrain in verses 3 and 10 where he mentions twice

that his enemies are taunting him, saying, where is your God?

And there's the main refrain that the chorus of the song in

verse 5 and 11, which is exactly what the Psalm is about, exactly

what it means. He says, why are you cast down,

O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within

me? Hope in God, for I shall again

praise him, my salvation and my God.

And most significantly, the word God and in my translation is

used 13 times in 11 verses, meaning he's making much of God

in his distress. And you can say, show me, tell

me. He doesn't make much of God when

he's depressed 13 times, he cries out to God in these 11

verses. And this is the difference

between a believer and an unbeliever.

How would you answer the question if someone came to you

and said, how do I know that I'm a Christian?

How can I know for sure? And there's whole books of the

Bible written to this first John and James.

But you could come here and say, do you love God like this?

Do you love God? Would you say that you your soul

longs for him, your soul thirsts for him?

And then think of the soils where Jesus says when trials

come, some will fall away. And you look at this believer,

this psalmist, it says the trials come and he longs for God

even more. You can come here and you can

say I'm a believer because I love the Lord of glory and my

soul longs for him. And you can see how he addresses

God in his distress. He uses the vocative tense.

Oh, God, the living God, my God, the God of my life, God, my

rock, my salvation. And my God tell me he doesn't

make much of God in his depression.

He says to his God in verse one as the deer pants for streams,

so my soul longs for you, O God. Verse 2, my soul thirsts for

God, the living God. This is like the deer.

It's an involuntary response. He can't help it.

He longs for him. He says like a deer desiring

water when it's thirsty. That's how his soul longs for

God. And I want to pause and ask you,

what is what exactly does this metaphor mean?

What does it mean that he longs for God?

Practically? What is he desiring?

What is he thirsting for? I think it's several things at

once. First, I think the psalmist is

longing for communion with God, and he wants to experience God.

He wants more of his peace. He wants more of his joy.

He wants more of his hope to be impressed back on him.

If you skip ahead to verse four, I think you're going to see that

he longs to be in the presence of God physically.

I mean, in the ancient Tabernacle, this is where God

would come in the temple. He would come in and dwell with

his people. And he's he's saying, I miss

worshipping with God's people. I miss being where we are today,

the power of this fellowship because I want to be back in the

church And it's he's apparently cut off from it.

He says, I literally want to be back with you and with your

people. And above all, I think he's

longing for the living waters of John four.

I think he's longing for nearness in the midst of

trouble. His his inner thought life, his

emotions, his soul. He says it's in turmoil.

And he wants the the stabilizing presence of God.

He wants this experiential nearness of God, a deeper

personal awareness of the Lord of glory.

And he summarizes all of this. He sums it up in this simple,

simple, beautiful, memorable metaphor as the deer pants for

the water. So my soul longs for you.

And we can learn a lot from that expression by looking at even

what his soul does not long for. He doesn't say I'm longing for

answers because I need to know exactly why I'm where I am.

He doesn't long for needing to know why he's in the situation

he's in. He's not longing for answers.

He's not longing for escape from his circumstances.

He's not trying to get out of them before his time.

He's longing for, he says God himself, the living God.

And you keep going to verse 3. It intensifies the longing by

introducing the hostility that he's facing because his enemies

are mocking him. It says all day long, saying

repeatedly. He says it twice.

They're mocking me saying where's your God?

And if you think about this, that means it's not unfounded

because they're looking at him and they're identifying him,

Somebody that you need to be delivered.

Something is wrong with you. There's something wrong in your

circumstances. And why won't your God help you?

Where is he? And so maybe David is, is

feeling this in his own soul saying, yeah, where, where is

he? He's speaking to a soul saying

hope in God. But that's not how God works.

As as a matter of fact, the psalmist is going to point out

in a minute and verse 7, he says, God is the one I'm going

to look to for help, but he's also the one who's ultimately

responsible for my distress. He's saying they're not.

And my enemies, Breakers coming over me, they are your Breakers

washing over me. He sees that God is ordaining

this situation. He's saying God's the one who's

going to make it better, but he's also the one who made it

worse. And your second response in

times of trouble and depression is a voluntary response.

The second response is a conscious one that takes effort.

You have to pour out your soul to God.

This is an appropriate response to spiritual depression.

Verses 4 and verse 8. Let's read them again.

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 of keeping festival go down to verse 8.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his

song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

He says in verse four of these things I remember as I pour out

my soul and verse 8, the Lord commands his steadfast love, and

at night his song is with me, a prayer.

So the second response is prayer.

And there's several things that he brings up as he's praying to

God. He speaks of prayer as

remembering. In this context, prayer is

remembering. He's going back and remembering

verse 4, how he would go with a throng.

I had to look up what a throng was.

So in case you didn't know, a large group of people, in this

case a large group of worshippers is 3 * a year.

You remember all of the Jews would would go up in festival to

Jerusalem. And he's saying, I used to lead

them. I used to be a part of that.

We would all sing together. We would sing the Psalms as we

went up to worship the Lord together.

What a joyful time. He's saying.

I remember it. And then in my remembering, it's

joyful because these are the most precious things that my

soul longs for. I miss my church, but also it's

sobering and depressing because I don't have that anymore.

I'm cut off and I don't get to do that anymore.

So he remembers worshipping. He remembers former worship.

He remembers verse 5, he says from the land of Jordan and of

Herman, from Mount Mitzar, which is where he is separated from

the Tabernacle and separated from his people.

I don't want to point out when, when we become depressed.

I know this from my own experience.

I know this from talking to some of you.

The last place we want to go is church.

And when you're very depressed, or we could say especially when

we're in trouble, the last place that we want to go is church.

But that's prescribed as the very place we go for healing.

That's the first place we're to go when we're in distress and

we're in trouble. This is where God balances us.

He uses his spirit, He uses his church.

You move to the second aspect of prayer in verse four.

He says, I remember you, But he says as I pour out my soul.

So prayer is, is pouring out your soul.

It's it's bearing your, your inner being, your thoughts, your

emotions, how you're truly feeling internally.

And it's it's appropriate to do this to God is what the Psalm

teaches. But it's also entirely

appropriate to do this with a trusted Christian friend,

somebody that you love and somebody that you trust.

This is what Hannah did in First Samuel, remember her soul is

distressed and she goes into the temple and begins to pray and it

says that she's praying with her within her own heart and no

words are coming out. She's just moving her lips.

And Eli finds her and he says, are you, are you drunk?

What's wrong with you? And she responds, I'm a woman

troubled in spirit. I've drunk neither wine nor

strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the

Lord. So she's praying to God.

It's it's unreserved prayer. It doesn't matter who's

watching. It doesn't matter who's

listening. It, it comes with many tears and

grief and in confusion. If you were to skip ahead in the

Psalms to Psalm 62, verse 8, the psalmist commands the church.

Psalms 62:8

Trust him at all times. Oh people, pour out your hearts

before him because God is a refuge for us.

That's what the psalmist is showing you.

He's a refuge. He prays to him.

He pours out his soul to him and the third and and final aspect

of the of this prayer, if you go down to verse 8 prayer is

singing in his depression. So whatever this prayer was, it

wasn't silent like Hannah's. It's kind of a weird, odd thing.

Have you ever sung in your depression to the Lord?

This is why it's so important that we have a shared vocabulary

and we have shared songs like Lord from sorrows deep.

I call so that when the the the sorrows come, we can sing these

songs to our own soul. Sing them back to the Lord.

Sing them in the assembly. Not just happy songs, not just

praise music, but sorrowful music.

What a strange prayer. By day the Lord commands his

steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.

The song is a prayer to the God of my life.

And in his distress he speaks to God.

And his distress he sings to God, but in his distress he also

talks to Himself. A third response I want you to

see in verses 5:00 and 11:00 you speak to your own soul.

How often do you do this to say to yourself, soul bless the

Lord, soul hoping God. Verse 5, verse 11 brings the

refrain that is the focal point of the passage.

It happens in verse 5. It happens in verse 11.

Psalm 43 is actually an extension of Psalm 42.

If you were to go to verse 5 and that Psalm, it's there again, he

tells you 3 times, hoping God, hoping God, hoping God, you

speak to your own soul saying why are you cast down on my

soul? Why are you in turmoil within

me? Hope in God, for I shall again

praise Him, my salvation and my God.

He speaks to his soul and he talks about this.

This is significant as you move through the song.

He says my soul pants for God, My soul longs for God.

My soul I'm pouring out to God. He says my soul is cast down,

meaning it's despairing. And he says it again in verse

11. My soul is cast down.

My soul is despairing. And the word despairing is, if

you looked it up in a, a secular dictionary, the Oxford

Dictionary says it's an absence of hope.

Despair is an absence of hope. You look it up in Merriam

Webster, same thing, an utter loss of hope.

There is no hope. Cambridge dictionary, the

feeling that there is no hope and nothing you can do to

improve a worrying situation. And if we're going to define it

theologically for us, we would say this, this is being cast

down. It, it's not living without

hope, but it's being tempted to live as if there was no hope.

It's being tempted to live like the world lives because you are

going through a difficult circumstance where God has

chosen not to intervene and then sometimes he doesn't.

It's amazing when you we go back to Psalm 5, you know, David is

pouring out his soul. He expects a response from God.

We went to Psalm 40. David has poured out his soul

and God responds. You come to Psalm 42.

The psalmist has poured out his soul and God has chosen not to

respond. And we would call this bitter

Providence because he could have responded.

He chooses not to for whatever reason.

And so the psalmist is picking up on this theme.

You're going to see how difficult the situation is in

verse 9:00 and 10:00. But when God isn't intervening,

it says he's, he's not far off, but he feels far off.

And we call it bitter Providence because Naomi says in the book

of Ruth, call me Mara, which means bitter, for the Lord has

dealt bitterly with me. Call me Mara.

Does anybody ever call her Mara? No, nobody calls her Mara.

She says, call me Mara for my soul.

God has dealt bitterly with my soul.

And you look at this affirmation.

If you look at verse 7 of God's sovereignty, he, he in the midst

of his bitter Providence, he declares the sovereignty of God.

He confesses the sovereignty of God.

He knows where his help comes from, but he knows where his

distress ultimately comes from too.

He says they are your Breakers, they are your waves.

This isn't Satan's waves. This isn't the waves of his

enemies. They are God's waves.

And the psalmist in that moment says, put your trust in him, put

your trust in God. And he reminds his soul that he

has hope. He speaks to his own soul and he

says, why are you in turmoil? Turmoil mean meaning turbulence

or an uproar to be in a stir. He says to his own soul.

He asks his soul, why are you despairing?

Why are you in turmoil? Why are you despairing?

We would call this in my family spiraling.

Why are you spiraling? Oh my soul, why are you

repeating negative thoughts? Why are you escalating?

Why are you disoriented? Why are you isolated?

And when you're in this kind of moment, one of the greatest

resources that the God has given you is your local church.

It's amazing how you can come into a local church, come into

the fellowship of believers, and they give you perspective.

They speak truth to you. They balance you.

You have a believer. It's a believer is over for

dinner. You go to to dinner at another

house where there are believers. It's amazing how quickly your

soul will be corrected, corrected, how quickly your

sorrow can be turned into joy. You can go to come to hymn sings

at the church or worship services.

It's amazing. You come in and there's candles

around a piano and Carol Bell is playing and we sing for an hour

and all of a sudden you're like, what was I sad about?

You got to go back. Oh, yeah, that's that's what it

was. It's corrective.

And even a phone conversation can help until you're in the

physical presence of believers. This may be a horrible

illustration. There's one that's in my head

and I'll share it with you if you ever watch Cesar Millan

train dogs. And there's just this, this dog

that's overly emotional and it's in distress and he'll bring it

into his home where there's a hundred well trained dogs, just

this pack of healthy dogs. And you put this psycho dog in

the instead of all of these others.

And what happens? They begin to correct one

another. And he leaves him there for a

few weeks and a few months and the dogs he brings in become

healthy again. That's what this church is.

We are, we are people who are souls long for God.

And we're, we're healthy and, and people can come and benefit

from this health. And when you're sorrowful, you

come here and people speak truth to you and they sing over you.

And all of a sudden your sorrow is turned into joy.

It's not overnight, but it's healing.

It's where marriages can come when you're in a fight.

It's where you come when you're find yourself in depression and

you can be corrected. David offers another corrective

in verses 5 and 11. He says you have the church,

yes, but why don't you speak to your own soul in the midst of

your spiral? Address your inner thoughts,

address your emotions, command your own will, Speak to

yourself. There's a famous 20th century

preacher named D Lloyd Jones. D Martin Lloyd Jones, the

doctor, and he wrote a book called Spiritual Depression,

It's Causes and Cure. It's up in the library if you

want to read it. The introduction of the book is

built around Psalm 42, and he says this in that introductory

chapter. Have you realized that most of

your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you're

listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?

Take those thoughts that come to you in the moment that you wake

up in the morning. You have not originated them,

but they start talking to you. They bring back the problems of

yesterday. Somebody is talking who's

talking to you, Yourself is talking to you.

Now this man's treatment in Psalm 42 was this.

Instead of allowing the self to talk to him, he starts to talk

to himself. Why are you cast down on my

soul? He asked.

His soul had been depressing him, crushing him.

So he stands up and says, self, listen for a moment.

Now I will speak to you. That's what the psalmist is

doing. He says to his soul, Soul, why

are you cast down? Why are you in turmoil within

me? Why are you despairing?

Put your hope in God at church. You have to train your soul to

hope in the Lord. You have to speak to your own

soul and train your soul to bless the Lord.

You speak like the psalmist does.

In Psalm One, O 3 soul, he says bless the Lord, bless the Lord,

O my soul, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and

forget not all his benefits. Who redeems your life from

destruction, who heals all your diseases, maybe not in time but

in eternity, Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender

mercies, Who satisfies your soul with good things.

You speak to your soul and you remind Him of those things.

These benefits that he gives are external to your circumstances,

meaning that whatever spiral you're in, whatever depression

you're in, all of these benefits are still yours.

You have to train your soul to remember these benefits.

It doesn't matter whether you're persecuted or spiraling or

depressed. They are objectively and

fundamentally true. And so Psalm 42, verse 5 and 11

Psalms 42:5

says, ask your soul this question.

Why are you despairing? Why are you in turmoil?

And command yourself hope in God, you interrupt your your

thought life. You command your own will.

And you say that my hope is external to all the

circumstances that I'm facing right now.

And it's that thought and logic that is going to sustain you in

the depression and in those circumstances, it's external to

them depression or your your hope and your joy are external

to the things you're experiencing.

Their hope is not circumstantial.

And if some 40 it reminded us to preach the gospel to others, and

it did over and over again. Psalm 42 reminds us to preach

the gospel to ourselves. Why do you encourage other

people? And you will not encourage your

own soul. Why do you have concern for the

souls of others? And you will neglect to concern

yourself with your own soul. Why would you call out the poor

thought patterns of others? And you'll neglect the poor

thought patterns in yourself. You have to call your own heart

back to its first love. And you have to correct your

soul. It's so important.

He says it three times. Why are you cast down?

Oh my soul. Hope in God, hope in God, hope

in God. And finally, the psalmist

recognizes that spiritual depression is not about thinking

positive thoughts. And all of a sudden everything

becomes perfect again. And it's rosy and optimistic.

That's not how the Christian life works.

Spiritual depression is also an opportunity to practice the

spiritual discipline of lament, and we won't get into it much.

This, this is lament. There are so many psalms that

that teach this, but lament is a spiritual discipline.

The fourth response is your soul laments.

It's involuntary. When horrible things come upon

you, the first thing you do as a Christian, as you take it before

the Lord, look, look at all the things.

Remember Hezekiah, Lord, look at the bad news.

This army is marching against me.

Look at my health report. I'm going to die.

You bring this before the Lord in prayer and you can lament

it's it's further pouring out your soul to God and it's

entirely appropriate to do this. Lament always begins by giving

voice to the horrible things in the horrible circumstances in

the horrible context. But I want you to understand is

lament is not about you. The focus is not you and your

pain. The focus is always on God.

You're taking it back to Him. Lament always starts with your

pain, and it always ends with declarations of trust to the

Savior. And so that's what happens in

verses 6 to 10. The psalmist reminds you that

lament is appropriate. Read with me, verse 6.

My soul is cast down within me. Therefore I remember you from

the land of Jordan and of Herman, and from Mount Mitzar.

Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls, all your

Breakers in your waves have gone over me by day the Lord commands

his steadfast love at night his song was with me a prayer to the

God of my life. I say to God, my rock, Why have

you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of

the oppression of the enemy as with a deadly wound in my bones.

My adversaries taught me while they say to me all the day long,

where is your God and so he calls to God and his context is

pathetic. You get a glimmer of of what it

is in verse 9. He says whatever it is, I feel

forgotten by you. Verse 9, I'm mourning verse 9,

I'm oppressed. He says verse 10, he's taunted

as his enemies call out again and again, where is your God and

why won't he rescue you And I want you to see in this

incredible Psalm. Verse 8 and 9 go together.

More than that, verse 8 and 9 are are side by side because in

in the Christian world, two things can always be true at

once. He says in verse 8, by day the

Lord commands his steadfast love, and then he says in verse

9 he feels utterly forgotten. And so you see two things true

which causes a perceived issue. God is near, but God feels far

away. Has anybody been there before?

God is near, God feels far away. And they are.

We profess those are both true. This is experiential religion.

This is honest worship. This is true religion, faith and

suffering, putting your trust in God and bringing your pain to

God. It's hurting and trusting.

And you see here he says, there's the memory of all this

past joy of getting to go to the House of the Lord.

But then there's the present circumstance where it's

completely unavailable to me. And then at the same time and in

the same breath, he says, and I will do it again.

I will praise God in the great assembly again.

This is the tension of the apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians

610. You are sorrowful, yet always

rejoicing. Romans 823 you groan inwardly,

yet wait eagerly. Both are true.

And so lament with praise is just honest.

And the following verse 8 is verse 9.

I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?

Why do I mourn? Because of the oppression of my

enemy. Mourning is used 19 * m OUR

mourning 19 times in the Old Testament, and the word

literally translates to be dark or black.

It's a state of depression. And John Piper said that he had

an insight into this kind of language from Scripture that

absolutely rocked Bethlehem Baptist Church.

He said his his church understood this language.

They understood what Psalm 42 meant, and it endured for a

generation. He said his church was never the

same once they understood this. And he says there are some words

that are the words of Job 625 to 26.

And they apply to how we counsel ourselves.

They apply to how we counsel others.

I want to read these to you. He says, How forceful are

upright words. This is the words of Job.

But what does reproof from you reprove?

Do you think that you can reprove words when the speech of

a despairing man is wind? So if Bethlehem Baptist Church

was here and they were to counsel our church, they would

say to you this There are some words that you speak, Job says,

that are wind words. The words of the wind.

You speak them and the wind blows them away.

To quote John Piper, don't be picky about my language when I'm

in pain. Don't be picky about my language

when I say God has forgotten me. That's not the time for you to

come in and say, well, God never forgets his own.

He's he's got your name written on his heart.

He says, let me express myself. These are wind words.

You know you're forgotten. Time will show that you're a

believer and that you're going to persevere through this.

And your theology is actually really good.

But in this moment, let me express words of the wind.

Let me express the hurt and pain that is in my heart.

Let me lament like the psalmist laments and give the people

around you the opportunity to express like this and give

yourself the opportunity to express like this, but lead

yourself at the end to put your trust and to put your hope in

God. So you see, I hope the response

of the psalmist, this fourfold response to his despairing soul.

He would say to you, you are to long for God.

You are to pour out your soul to God.

You are to speak to your own soul, and it is entirely

appropriate for you to lament. And as Christians, we can't help

longing for God like a deer pants for the water.

We can't help but bring our distress for God as sufferers

and worshippers. But what you can do is you can

voluntarily pour out your soul to Him in prayer.

You can train your soul to bless Him and train your soul to hope

in Him. And if you are experiencing

spiritual depression, then you're in good company.

Christopher Ashe says the grief portrayed in these Psalms is a

very particular sadness, one felt supremely by Jesus Christ

in the Garden of Gethsemane and now by all who are in Christ.

And Jesus said in the garden, my soul is very sorrowful.

Sorrowful is the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament

word cast down. His soul was cast down.

And one last quotation from Luther's greatest disciple was

Philip Malangston. And he said many in the church

have enormous sorrows, some more severe, some less severe also.

Let us all learn that the will of God is that we would not

succumb to such sorrows, but that we would rouse ourselves in

faith and hope. And it is necessary to lean on

this faith and hope and not on our righteousness and dignity,

but on the mercy of God alone, revealed in the promises.

How can you do that practically? How do you do this?

You quit listening to yourself and you talk to yourself.

And when you open your mouth, what do you say?

Except why are you cast down my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?

Hoping God, for I shall again praise Him my salvation and my

God. Pray with me, and we will sing

these words of the Psalm over one another.

One more time, Lord, many of us from sorrows deep we call.

We all have trouble, Lord. If we were free from it, then we

would be in heaven with you. But You have promised not that

you would deliver us from every trouble, but that you would be

with us in the trouble. And so, Lord, thank you for

giving us spiritual disciplines like lament.

May we, may we use them, may we not neglect our own soul when we

are depressed and when we are spiraling or, but give us the

confidence in the, the presence of mind and the Peace of Mind to

say to our own soul, soul, bless God and hope in him.

And we pray that we would be available to one another for

correction and for balancing. And we would be the church,

whether it's 3:00 AM or 3:00 PM, that we could be this balancing

presence and that we could balance ourselves and know how

to self correct and self teach, to teach ourselves and talk to

ourselves. Lord, reminding us of your hope,

your peace, your joy. God impressed us on us.

Now, even as we sing together, we pray.

All this in Christ's name. Amen.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage

Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit

our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.