Hope Of The World | Fighting For Hope (December 13th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well you can get your uh Bibles open today with me to the Psalms.

Okay, we're gonna be in Psalm 42 and uh in 43 uh as well.

Now, as a child of the 80s and uh 90s, as I was, uh I remember playing those old school uh video games, arcade games, games like um some of you all remember this, like like Double Dragon, remember that, and and and Street Fighter, right?

I I see some people uh nodding along.

This is a shot of uh of Street Fighter 2, I believe.

And some of you remember this, Ryu versus Ken.

Yeah, exactly.

You've got the people nodding along.

Now, listen, I understand that um you know everyone's gonna have kind of different opinions on these kinds of things and you know whether or not you know these uh kinds of things are even appropriate or were appropriate uh back in the day when we were uh kids.

Some of you were like, yeah, totally.

Like I remember playing this.

I remember you know saving up like a pocket full of quarters and just you know stuffing them into the arcade machine uh in the mall that I used to always go to, and other people were like, man, I wasn't even like, I grew up in a Christian home and we were pretty conservative, and we're I wasn't even allowed to play these kinds of games.

And and like, and and isn't this like a Christmas series?

Like, what is even happening right now?

Why are we talking about Street Fighter?

Well, I mention all of this because the more that I think of it, uh the more I'm coming to view this experience of the human experience of hope and hopelessness, and how you and I, we kind of drift in and out of those two things, uh, the more I'm viewing this as like a gritty street fight, okay, that rages on inside each one of us.

Okay, I think we can all point to times in our life, maybe for you it's even this week, okay, or or today, even, uh, where we were overcome by a strong sense of hopelessness, like uh like just a punch to the gut.

It's easy to feel beat down and absolutely battered by by those thoughts and those emotions when they overcome us.

And I think as as Christians sometimes, even we, we feel, we kind of feel powerless, don't we?

We feel ill-equipped, and sometimes, if we're really honest, just unmotivated even to fight back.

And so what ends up happening is we kind of just, we kind of spiral in this, in this hopelessness, and and we continue to kind of take those beatings over and and over again.

I mean, of course, I think it's easy to say that that's there's there's no fun in that, right?

And it's certainly no way to live.

And so today, what we want to do in this message is figure out how do we fight back against this?

Right?

How to fight for hope, okay, and and and learn to kick that that hopelessness that invades our soul, how to kick that to the curb.

Okay, and so to do this, we're gonna look at, again, like I said, Psalm 42 and 43, which provides for you and I, I believe, just just a spot-on model uh for us to follow.

And and the psalmist, as he pours out his heart and as he prays, he really gives us some very practical weapons to put in our arsenal, some some arrows to put in our quiver, if you will, as you and I engage in this battle.

All right, and so let's let's read this.

Why are we doing two psalms?

Well, they actually both work together.

They're both kind of part of one unit, and so we're gonna read them both.

It's only 16 verses, but here it is Psalm 42, verse 1.

Psalms 42:1

It says, As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for you, 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.

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.

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 your breakers and your waves have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

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

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of my 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, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

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

Vindicate me, he says, O 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?

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 a lyre, O God, my God.

And then he finishes with this again.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

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

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for how you have directed uh the psalmist to pen these words, God, because they give us a great pathway to follow when we are struggling with hopelessness.

And so, Father, I pray that as we unpack these words today, Father, your Holy Spirit would speak to our souls, speak to our hearts, help us to anchor our hope to what is true.

That is you, that is the gospel.

Lord, that is what we celebrate when we come together this time of year and celebrate Christmas.

It's it's Jesus' coming, the hope of the world.

And so, Father, as we think about these things, I pray that we would remember it in the context that you did come and you did take care of the penalty of our sins, Lord.

And I pray that we would rejoice.

I pray that our hope would ultimately be anchored in that, that we would gain perspective, Lord, no matter what is happening, Lord.

Lord, I think of right now how just the disappointment and the frustration even of another lockdown that we're facing.

God, I pray that in all of this our eyes would be on you.

I pray that in all of this we would not be robbed of joy, Lord.

I pray that in all of this you would give us wisdom and courage and boldness and clarity, Lord.

I pray that you would unite our church in this time.

Father, I pray that we would not all just drift away because we're not all together for a short period.

So, God, would you do a mighty work, Lord?

God, I pray that as we struggle with hopelessness in all kinds of different areas, God, I pray that you would meet us there, Lord.

I pray that you would help us work through these things and come to you, our great God, who loves us, who is faithful, and is true.

God, I also want to just thank you for this opportunity that we have as a church to put forward Dave Grant's name as an elder, Lord.

And I just thank you for this man, their family, and and how you have led this time, God.

I pray that you would use him powerfully in our church and continue to do that and continue to grow our church strong.

And so, Lord, as we as we think about these things and as we as we wrestle with a world that's broken, and at the same time rejoice in the goodness of the things that you are doing in our lives in our church, Lord, I pray that you would be glorified and honored, and we pray it all in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, uh, maybe you're thinking, uh, Psalm 42 and 43 doesn't exactly seem like a like a real Christmas passage.

And uh maybe uh you're right with that.

Um, but if you remember, last week we looked at Matthew chapter 1 and and how Jesus came, right?

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

Jesus came and he was born.

And the verse there, verse 21 says, to save his people from their sins.

Right?

That's us.

And and and that was his purpose, right?

It's what he what he accomplished through through the cross and through the resurrection, and and that is the very thing that gives us our ultimate hope.

That we have been forgiven of our sin.

That's against a holy God.

We have been rescued from his wrath, right?

That we deserve.

We're rescued off of the path that had us headed towards hell for eternity, right?

We we deserve that.

We we've been rescued from it.

We've been redeemed and made right, we've been declared righteous, we have been justified, right?

For for us, there is no greater hope than that.

There really is not.

No stronger hope for you and I to hitch our wagons to.

And so as we try to get you know, real practical here today, all of what we're gonna discuss is is based on and is and is connected to the foundation and the truth of what we looked at uh last week.

You know, as you and I try and try and figure out here in everyday life how to become hope-filled people.

All right, and so with that, we've got three uh things today, okay, how to fight for hope.

Here's three ways.

Okay, here's the first one.

Cultivate that yearning to just be near the Lord.

Okay, that's one thing that you and I, we we have to do, we gotta cultivate that.

Okay, and I think we see that happening here in the first part of Psalm 42.

Notice just the longing of the author here, the psalmist, as he writes.

He says there, as the deer pants, right?

As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

He says, My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

He's like, when?

You see the desperation there, right?

Like, when, when shall I come and appear before my God?

You see that that desperation and that longing that the psalmist has for God, right?

He yearns for him.

Right?

Obviously, he he's writing this because he's going through some kind of trying situation.

Right?

He he goes on to use words like turmoil, right?

I'm in turmoil, I I go about, I go about mourning, I you know, I'm oppressed by my enemies, uh, my soul is cast down.

These are the types of things he says.

We're gonna get to all of that.

Okay, but don't miss how right out of the gate here he just makes it very clear that, man, I just want God.

Right?

When it's like a hot day out and you're so thirsty and you get to crush that that tall glass of water, that that is the thirst, the panting that he has for God himself.

Okay, more than he wants the, you know, even the emotional relief that that hope brings us when it begins to flood our souls.

Even more than he wants that experience.

More than he wants the difficult situation itself to be resolved, okay, of greatest importance to this man is that he would sense the Lord's nearness to him.

He's like, that's what I want, that's what I need.

He wants to enjoy that intimacy of relationship with his creator.

I mean, what a massive thing, right?

That is.

And something that you and I, we we so we so easily miss it, I think.

Yeah, I know we've talked about this type of thing before, but but have you noticed how many times, you know, if we're being honest here, how many times we simply just want God to fix our problems and make us feel better?

You ever notice that?

Have you ever noticed that that is like, that's very easily like the number one desire that we want?

I'm uncomfortable in my hopelessness or in the lack of peace or lack of joy that I have?

Lord, would you just like fill me with good feelings?

Lord, my my problems are are inconvenient to me and and and making life a challenge, would you just would you just make them go away, Lord?

Would you just answer these prayers?

You notice how we often want those types of things from God more than we just want Him.

Right?

It's kind of like we try and hold God at arm's length a little bit.

Right?

Where we don't want him to be too far, where we can't like grab hold of him if we're in a jam, but at the same time, we don't really want him to come any closer either, where he might kind of get into our hearts and and kind of disrupt our desires and our and our kind of self-centered plans and goals for our life.

Like we don't want him that close, we want, but we don't want them too far, and so we kind of keep him at at arm's length a bit, but just far enough where we can reach our hand out and Lord, you can just like drop the goodies of your blessings and the answers of prayers into my hand so I can so I can have those, but I'm gonna keep you uh at bay.

I think that's how we can often operate, but if you can't tell, that's not good.

That's not a good thing.

And and so sometimes, you know, the Lord, he won't he won't just automatically fix our situations or or give us that thing that we want, even if it's a really good thing, because he knows that that we've made an idol of it.

Right?

We want that thing too much.

We want it more than we want him.

And and so in the trials of life and in the different challenges and and and sometimes in the hopelessness that that comes along as you and I experience those things in as people living in a broken world, what what God is often doing in those times is when he's not answering that prayer immediately and not giving you that thing that he wants, what he's doing is he's trying to draw you out a little bit.

He's trying to draw out those desires that are deep down, though that that yearning for him and that nearness to him.

He's trying to bring that stuff up to the service where it replaces and is stronger than the desire that we have for things from God.

Where you and I, we're he's trying to get us to the place where we're like, well, well, yeah, like of course I want my circumstances all ironed out and I want to see them changed for the better.

And of course I don't love the emotional turmoil that I'm that I'm dealing with right now and the despair that I sense kind of creeping in the fringes of my heart and mind.

Okay, but those things aren't my greatest desire.

Those things aren't my greatest hope.

More than I want those things improved.

I just want you, God.

I just want to be near you.

I want to sense the intimacy.

I I know that's what it's about.

I mean, that's what that's what this guy wants here.

Right?

He's obviously been through the ringer enough to realize that that's the best thing.

Like that's what's best.

It's the most important thing.

And so I love how he just right off the bat, he just expresses that yearning.

He's got his priorities straight, he's got the order of things straightened out.

And so, hey, as as as you're thinking about this and and and and you're uh you're kind of wrestling with that fight for hope in your own soul, start start yearning, start cultivating a desire for or or a yearning to just be near God.

Start start kind of working on it, give that some attention.

Right?

Start wanting Him more than you want things from Him.

Or more than you want your circumstances fixed.

Because I mean that's that's really a big part of the fight, isn't it?

I think it is.

You know, your flesh is is gonna want to take over.

And it and it's gonna try and get you to essentially use God to get things from him.

He got, I I've got I've got what I want now, now you can just kind of go away, but again, don't go too far, just in case I might need you.

When the reality is that nothing brings us hope more than just being near the Lord and wanting him.

Okay, hope is a byproduct of intimacy with the Lord.

That's really it.

See, when we're close to him, we're automatically filled with things like hope, right?

Like peace and joy and passion and purpose in life.

See, I think what we sometimes do is we kind of separate it all out in our minds a bit, way too much.

Like like God is over here and and and hope is over there, and and hope is the thing that I'm craving, so I'm gonna go for hope as though that's like separate from from God Himself.

Whereas if we would just if we would just long for Him, or if we would just yearn for the Lord Himself, we get hope tossed in automatically.

So listen, I I'd say begin cultivating this yearning in your own heart on a desire level by simply praying for it.

Lord, would you would would you change the motives of my heart and change kind of the direction of this?

I realize that I want emotional, you know, emotional medication from you, but Lord, I need to want, I need to want you, Lord, help my help my soul to pant for you.

Help my my soul to thirst for you, God.

And as you're praying, there's there's always a repentance component to this.

Lord, forgive me for how how I've just I've sometimes used you to get things from you.

I've seen you as this as this cosmic butler that's just there at my beck and call to give me whatever I want.

But there's no relationship.

Lord, would you forgive me for that?

Would you begin to transform my heart?

And even as I get in your word this week, Lord, and I come before you, I pray that it just wouldn't be this kind of wooden mechanical thing where I'm reading it done on to my day, but I'm reading this, I'm I'm I'm I'm opening up the pages, I'm I'm studying it as a way to draw close to you and to desire you.

Not just learn about a bunch of facts, but actually come close to my God.

You can see here, it really comes down to like a mentality shift, right?

And and a changing of our approach.

The fight for hope has to begin with with an intentionality on our part to pursue and desire God Himself.

We we need the Lord, we need the Spirit to transform our hearts.

I totally get that.

We need to be intentional about this as well.

I mean, if you were to start there, trust me, hope is gonna fall.

Here's the second thing.

How to fight for hope.

Face all those painful emotions with honesty.

Take note here just how frank he is, honestly, about how he's feeling and the difficulty that he's facing.

Verse three.

He says, My tears have been my food day and night.

That doesn't sound like a fun experience.

Okay, while they, that's his enemies, say to me all the day long, where is your God?

See how they're taunting him?

He says, These things I remember as I pour out my soul.

Okay, so he's being like brutally honest with the Lord.

He says, 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.

Right?

That's what he's longing for.

He wants to see that day again.

Okay, apparently his circumstances, whatever they might be, they're not mentioned, are preventing him from being able to worship with God's people.

I don't know, maybe he's in the gray zone as well.

Okay, who knows?

I'll skip down to you can laugh, it's okay.

You can skip down to uh verse nine with me here for a second, and just so you know, we're not gonna exactly gonna go in like numerical order all the way through this here.

Okay, we're gonna jump around a little bit based on the various themes that that crop up through this.

So verse 9 says, Look, I say to God, my God, why have you forgotten me?

That that's that's pretty guttural to say that.

That takes some guts, doesn't it?

Now it's not to say that the Lord actually has forgotten about him, right?

Not at all.

But it definitely feels that way sometimes, doesn't it?

You ever felt that way, of course?

Right?

We all have.

Crying out to him.

Right?

Pain, discomfort, no apparent response from the Lord.

That definitely makes it seem like the Lord has forgotten us and is neglecting us.

And that's how this guy is feeling.

And so he just honestly shares how he's feeling about it.

He goes on, he says, Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of my enemy?

He says, As with, look at this description, as with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me.

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

Okay, jump ahead now into 43 verse 1.

He says, This, Vindicate me.

Hey, clear me of blame and suspicion, God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man.

Deliver me.

Yeah, I love that part too.

I really appreciate how he he shows us that it's not wrong to pray that our circumstances change.

Right?

You realize that?

He's dealing honestly with that too.

He's like, Lord, I want the nonsense that these evil people are committing against me and against you.

I want that to be dealt with.

Lord, will you?

Realize that God cares very, very much about the specific and personal problems and troubles that you're dealing with.

It's not wrong at all to ask him for help and whether it's it's financial distress that you're going through.

It's not wrong to ask the Lord to like, would you come in?

My marriage is really not in a good place.

Can you help, Lord?

Can you fix all of that?

It's not wrong to pray that He would move us past all this COVID stuff.

Or that he'd help our government to not make awful decisions.

As we're fighting for hope and working to anchor our deepest hopes to Christ and the gospel primarily.

Remember, that's what last week was about.

Right?

We've been redeemed from sin.

Right?

That is what that's got to be the bedrock of our hope.

And while we are certainly aiming and working to make sure that that is happening, listen, it's it's good to know that we can and and and should pray that the Lord would work out the rest of it as well.

I'm not saying that.

Not at all.

Okay, and and he continues to be honest here.

Take a look at verse 2 now.

This is Psalm 43.

He says, For you are the God in whom I take refuge.

Why does he take refuge in the Lord?

Because he's his hope.

Right?

That's why he runs to him.

He said, but he says this, why have you rejected me?

Again, that's what it feels like.

Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of my enemy?

Now again, I don't know about you, but I have always valued and so appreciate the permission that the Psalms give us to be brutally honest about our struggles and the painful emotions that they cause you and I to experience.

I'm very thankful for that.

So listen, I don't know exactly who needs to hear this today, but but it's okay.

In fact, it's actually good to express your pain, to express your confusion, your frustrations, and your disappointments to the Lord.

Right?

Even if it's if if it's messy and it's ugly and it's unpolished.

Again, the author here, he's expressing his concern that God's forgotten him, that God has rejected him.

I mean, that's not even remotely true.

But again, it certainly feels like that on an emotional level when we go through it in the moments.

Again, we've all experienced it.

And so, yeah, well, it's it's it's certainly great for us to be at the place of maturity where we're just like confidently and quietly and you know, faithfully enduring our problems as we hope and trust in the Lord.

I mean, we all want to get there and we're all working to get there, okay?

But the reality is that sometimes, always, okay, it's a messy and emotionally turbulent and painful process to get there.

I think we often think that maturity should just be this like smooth thing.

Godliness should be this fairly easy, right?

It's not.

The Lord will go in into the into the nooks and crannies of your heart and start to expose some stuff, and it's it's hard and it and it can be very messy.

But listen, that's okay according to the Bible.

Right?

So be real about all of that stuff with Him.

See, fighting for hope in your soul involves actually processing the painful emotions that entice you towards hopelessness.

Don't be fooled into thinking that that pushing the pain away is how you you become hopeful.

Well, if I if I start to face the pain, then I'll I'll be hopeless.

But it's it's in that place where you find that the God of hope actually meets you.

And he begins to transform your hopelessness at the foundation of your heart and your soul and gives you hope, real hope.

Okay, so process this stuff.

Face that stuff, take some courage, be bold.

When you start to face these emotions and look them squarely in the eyes, as you work through that, it helps you to identify sometimes some of the wrong thinking or some of their misplaced hopes that we have.

Instinctively, though, and and I'm sure we all fall into this to some degree, I think we find ourselves tempted to just ignore those things, don't we?

Because maybe they're a little bit scary, maybe we don't know what it's gonna look like.

We fear what the path, where the path will take us, and so we we kind of instinctively sweep them under the rug because, again, the discomfort of it all, we don't know what to do.

Okay, but listen, don't be don't be like the I I'm kind of picturing like the college guy who gets who gets dumped by his girlfriend, right?

And and and we've we've all known that guy, and and some of us have maybe been that guy.

Right?

And and and and he and he goes through this breakup and it's it's ugly and messy, but how does he conduct himself?

He's like, I'm good, I'm fine.

Oh yeah, I don't know, I'm good, ready to move on, ready to start dating again.

Dude, it's been a it's been a week.

Like you're you're not okay.

Right?

You're you're denying reality here.

Everyone can see that you're not helping, you're not in a good place, you're hurting, but you're you're ignoring it, you're pretending, you're not facing with any measure of honesty whatsoever.

Okay, there's something extremely healthy and healing about expressing your pain and and your emotions to the Lord as you're battling through the hopelessness.

Do not bury those things.

You want to start winning this fight, you gotta start facing this stuff head on.

And recognize we have a God who welcomes us into this process with open arms.

He's like, Come on, bring it.

Bring your pain, bring your burdens.

I I can I can handle this stuff.

Okay, not to mention, you've got a church of people here.

Right?

We we care for you too.

We want to help you work through this stuff uh as well.

So listen, I would encourage you and challenge you, open up to somebody that you know.

For some, that's that's pretty easy.

You're just like and you just kind of share everything.

And others, though, you're like, I don't want to go there.

And I don't know if I can if I can trust these people or or or or no one's gonna understand what I am going through or have endured.

But can I just encourage you to even just a bit talk to somebody?

Put yourself out there a little bit in small group.

I I mean, I I I think we would all love to see our our prayer request time in small group get beyond the whole, like, well, I didn't read my Bible this week.

Could you use prayer for that?

Right?

And it's like you you you share something that's like, well, that's that's true, and and and right, we we should probably want to read our Bibles, but but you also shared something without telling anybody anything about yourself.

Right?

And and then the walls are up, and and that can go on for months and years.

Listen, put yourself out there.

I guarantee you, no one's gonna be like, what?

You can't share that.

No one's gonna say, oh my god, like you cannot say that.

No one's gonna say that.

People are gonna people are gonna appreciate, they're gonna pray for you, they're gonna be an ear for you as you walk through these things and and and help you find help.

Look, but but holding back and hiding all the emotional turmoil, that's just simply not how believers ultimately get to a place of rock solid hope.

Now listen, while we're to face all of that stuff with with honesty, it's certainly not, let me make this very clear, it's certainly not to wade into pain and just camp out there forever.

Okay, that that is not it, not even close.

Okay, facing that stuff is is is necessary, okay, but it but it's a very temporary step to get to, well, this final thing here.

Okay, how to fight for hope.

Third thing, instruct myself to place my hope in what is actually true.

Okay, yeah, we face the difficulty, but it's but it's to also do this.

It's like two sides of the same coin.

And again, without minimizing everything that we've kind of talked about already this morning, these verses right here in the text really zero in on the crux, I believe, of our fight for hope.

Right?

This stuff is like ultra important.

These are core actions that you and I, like we, we, we've gotta take.

We've gotta we've gotta lock this in if we wanna win the battle for hope in our souls.

Okay, and so for this, we're gonna look at it three different sections here, but make your way back to Psalm 42 again in verse five.

Okay, and notice very carefully with me here what he what he does here.

He asks himself, look, why, why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why again are you in turmoil within me?

And then you see what he does?

He like snaps himself out of it.

He's like, hope in God, man.

Hope in God.

For I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Okay, and then he admits right there again, my soul is cast down within me, right?

He's still being honest.

This is messy.

He says, Therefore, though, therefore, look, I remember you.

I remember you.

He's getting his his thoughts focused on the Lord and on the things of the Lord.

He says, From from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mazar.

So everywhere.

Verse 7, deep calls to deep, at the roar of your waterfalls, all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.

Okay, so he's remembering the vastness of God and his power and his strength and you know and his goodness, despite all the challenges and the difficulties he's going through.

Verse 8, look.

But day by day the Lord commands his what?

Steadfast love.

So he's remembering the steadfast love of God for him.

He says, at night his song is with me, which is another way of saying, like, God, you are with me at night.

You're close.

Right?

He says a prayer to the God of my life.

Now skip down to verse 11.

And again, notice that he's repeating again some of what he's already said.

He says, Why?

Why are you cast down, oh my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God.

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

Okay, last section, back into Psalm 43, verse 3.

Psalms 43:3

He says, Send out your light.

Let me find it, lost it.

He says, Send out your light and your what?

Truth.

Truth, right?

Let them lead me.

Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

He's like, let truth be my guide here.

Let truth guide me towards you, towards the God in whom my hope is found.

Right?

Verse 4, he says, Then I will go to the altar of God, to the God my my what?

My exceeding joy.

And I will praise you with the liar, O God my God.

I will I will worship you.

Truth will lead me into this place of joy and hope and worship again.

And then look what he says in verse 5, same thing.

Why?

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God for the love, please, soul.

Hope in God is what he's saying.

For I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

You see what he's doing here, right?

I mean, a lot of this really gets back to that whole series we looked at back in September.

Be transformed.

Right?

Romans 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, right?

His mind.

That's what he's doing.

He's renewing his mind and what's true.

He's remembering things of God.

In Philippians 4, 8 and 9, we looked at that too.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true.

And he goes on to list a number of other things that are really great.

He says, if there is any of excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Think about truth.

He says, What you have learned and received and heard in me, he says, practice these things.

This is what the Apostle Paul says.

Practice these things.

That's exactly what the psalmist is doing here.

He's practicing over and over again.

Why?

He's questioning himself.

He recognizes the direct correlation between believing what's true and actually having hope.

Let me say that again.

He's recognizing the direct correlation between believing truth and having hope.

Okay?

So so when he's feeling hopeless, when he uses the words like turmoil and mourning, he's giving himself a pep talk here.

Like, why, right?

Why are you cast down on my soul?

Why are you in turmoil within me?

Notice how he's doubting the validity of his hopelessness.

He's questioning it.

He's like, emotionally, I'm kind of a wreck right now, and it feels like God's abandoned me.

It feels like God's gone away.

He's rejected me.

Why am I doing that?

Why?

He's like, this isn't right.

He's like, forget that.

I'm not gonna give in to it because of what I know to be true about God.

He's like, I'm gonna remember my God.

I'm gonna remember, God, that you are everywhere and you can reach anyone.

I will remember your steadfast love, he says.

Lord, lead me in your truth and let your truth lead me to you where my hope is found.

Right?

And you see there how he just goes through this process.

He repeats it three times.

He's coaching himself through the battle against hopelessness, as he, again, he's fighting for hope in his soul.

Again, remember how back in September we we we kind of looked at this, right?

And how we all have that soundtrack of lies and negativity playing on a loop in the back of our minds over and over again.

And so you and I, we're we're we're people that have to constantly renew our minds in the truth if we want to truly be transformed.

Right?

If the specific area of transformation that you and I want to see is hope, right, that's the context of what we're what we're discussing uh now, right?

If that's if that's what we want, then we have to fight back against whatever our emotions and and and our fears, those thoughts and those lies are that we're believing that cause our hope to dwindle.

That's what we have to do.

Listen, if if you're struggling to hold on to hope and hopelessness is crushing you and it feels like a heavy weight on you, listen, start to do what this guy's doing.

Question your hopelessness.

Why?

Question your doubts, question your fears.

Why am I so down in the dumps?

Why am I so negative all the time?

Why is there this turmoil?

Because the the the hopelessness that I'm feeling doesn't actually fit with the reality that I know to be true as a believer.

Right?

That God loves me, that he sent his son Jesus Christ to fix what my sins broke and reconcile me back to himself.

Right?

I have been given, remind yourself, I've been given everything that I need.

I've been given a right relationship with God.

I've got the Holy Spirit within me.

I've been given his word, which guides me.

I've been given this community of believers who love me and want to help me in my walk.

Right?

Those are the things that are true.

Therefore, I have every single reason, every single day, to hope in God.

Bottom line, that's it.

I shall again praise him, my salvation, and my God.

That can be us too.

Listen, the importance of instructing ourselves here to believe what's actually true and hope in those things cannot be overstated.

It can't be.

So the question really is, are are we doing it?

Or or will we do it?

Or we or will we allow our teeth to get kicked in by the continual loop of lies and negativity that in our weakness we naturally kind of slip into?

Are we renewing our minds in the word of God?

Are we coaching ourselves, speaking truth to ourselves, giving ourselves these these pep talks, instructing ourselves, snapping ourselves out of it.

When we start to go down that that that path of despair and hopelessness, don't allow your emotions to drag you off a cliff.

Let the truth lead you to the God of true and lasting hope.

And so even just as a practical thing here, take a little bit of time.

Today, this afternoon, this week, find a verse that fills you with hope.

Find one verse.

Some awesome truth of God that you can go back to as you find a way of practicing these things, as Philippians 4 says.

Find a friend.

Find somebody here or somebody that you trust that you can connect with that that can encourage you in your fight for hope, that you can encourage them in their fight for hope as well.

And listen, again, very practically, I mentioned this at the beginning.

I want us to move to a time of prayer here.

You know, as we think about lockdowns and and Christmas and people being a home alone and all of those kinds of things, I think now is the time to pray.

And pray with the backdrop of what our hope is found in.

We don't have to despair here.

And so what we want to do is just take the next, I don't know, five, ten minutes.

You can pray as long as you want.

And we're gonna gather just again in the groups of families, people that you came with, and you can just move the chairs around however you want to here.

And I want to give you a few ideas, a few topics that you can be praying for, be praying for our church.

As we head into a lockdown here, like I said, uh, there is zero excitement in me, to put it as mildly as I possibly can, about that.

Pray for us, pray for spiritual health in our church.

There are people that we have simply not seen or heard from, despite efforts, since the first lockdown.

You don't think the enemy wants to use this to pull people away from each other, to pull people away from the Lord?

Absolutely, he does.

Pray for our church.

Pray that the Lord would grant us a strong sense.

Of community and love for each other.

Be thinking about who are the different people who I can maybe reach out to this week.

Right?

John and Jeremy and I specifically, we're really trying to do a better job of this and connecting with you and others as well.

But we all need to be doing it.

We all need to be reaching out to people.

Pray that the Lord would build this even in a difficult time.

Pray again that our hope would be in Christ most of all through all of this, that we would not be led by fear.

Pray for our church in these things.

Pray for our elders.

Pray that we would have great wisdom.

I don't remember them teaching me how to deal with a pandemic in seminary.

Pray for us that we would have courage and that we would be unified as we try to plot our way forward here.

We need your prayer, honestly.

Pray for our government officials.

Listen, despite my current frustration with these things, 1 Timothy 2, verse 1 and 2 says that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving even be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet, godly and dignified life in every way.

1 Timothy 2:1

Being frustrated, being upset, being confused, all of that, doesn't mean we have a right to hate.

That can be a battle in our hearts to pray for our government officials, that the Lord would use, would use them, would work through them and guide them.

And of course, pray that hope would be the bedrock of all of this for us as a church.

Alright, so I don't want to even talk anymore.

The service is over.

If you need to get going, we understand that.

But we really urge you to take a few minutes here and spend some time praying for these things.

Pray for what's going on in your own life, of course.

And when you are done, the service is over.

And so we want you to know, and you'll hear me saying this online, but maybe the last time for a little bit, anyways, of getting to say this to your face.

We want you to know that you are loved.

You really are.

So let's go to prayer.

Let's go to prayer right now.