Faith Remembers

You're welcome to take one off the back table and keep it as our gift to you.! When I meditate, my spirit paints.

Selah. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago.

I said, let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart. Then my spirit made a diligent search. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?

Selah. Then I said, I will appeal to this. To the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord.

Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God?

You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You, with your arm, redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder.

Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea.

Your path through the great waters. Yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flack. By the hand of Moses and Aaron. This is the word of the Lord.

Good morning, Shoreline. Good morning. Let us, let's pray after that heavy psalm and thank God for his word.

Heavenly Father, this morning, as we approach your throne, we come here with contrite hearts, confessing our sin, God, and desiring to be closer and to know you more. Thank you for your word, God, here in Psalm 77 that speaks of a day of lament, but also a day of remembrance.

Remembrance of you, God, who is mighty and good. Mighty to save. All powerful, all knowing, and all good. Your way is sure, and your way sometimes is through the sea.

So, Father, as we meditate on this word this morning, would you receive all glory, honor, and power, and would we receive the joy that is given to us through Christ Jesus.

I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good morning. My name is Jim Gankars. I'm a member here at Shoreline, and I have the distinct privilege of preaching from Psalm 77 this morning. This is a really cool psalm, isn't it?

Oh, I don't know. Have you guys heard it before? I hope. Some people, it's all right. Well, there's a lot of depth here. There's a lot of depth here, and we're going to look at that. But before we do that, I want you to think, talk through an illustration here.

Have you ever been driving, and your GPS, like, fails? Ever had that happen, and suddenly it's, like, locked up, and you're like, okay, where am I going? Or maybe, if you're a hiker, right, have you ever hiked before, and the trail you're on, maybe dense cloud coverage or darkness comes, and you go, oh, my gosh, I'm not totally sure where I'm going next.

I see, I was looking at the trail markers, those bright blue reflections, and I'm not sure where I'm going. Well, in both those situations, there's something kind of interesting that happens. The road itself has not changed, right? The trail hasn't disappeared, and your destination hasn't moved.

But what has changed is your ability to see, right, to see where you're going. And in those moments, you don't invent a new route, right? We've been there, right, driving along. This isn't the right state.

We don't have mountains in Connecticut. What is this? No, you don't invent a new route. You return to what you already know to be true, and you remember your last clear direction. Okay, the GPS says stay on this for like, I think it was half a mile.

I'm going to remember and trust that, because that's what it said. I remember that. You trust the path until your vision returns, right? Psalm 77 is a story of a believer who is walking through a spiritual fog, okay?

The psalmist hasn't lost God. God has not disappeared, has he? But he has lost sight of him, and so because of that, Asaph, who is the psalmist, he is disoriented. By the end, he hasn't escaped his valley, his circumstance, his pain, but he has rediscovered the guide.

And that's awesome. This psalm shows us that God leads his children from despair to hope. Not immediately. He doesn't always change our circumstances, but he teaches us to remember what they already know, what we already know about him.

And so that's our main point today. If you leave with one thing, this would be an awesome thing to leave with. It's when God feels distant, hope is not found by changing our circumstances, but by remembering the unchanging character and works of God.

That is an awesome, awesome truth that we can rest in, you guys. All right, so this psalm, it's a bit of a blueprint for our souls during despair and discouragement, as I said. It's a lament. It's found in book three of the Psalter, which is the collection of psalms.

That contains Psalms 73 through 89. And that tends to have particularly darker psalms. Some of the psalms are of lament, of national crisis, and failure of the Davidic covenant.

Now, God did not fail in the Davidic covenant, did he? God does not fail. He is unchanging, right? We've just said that. But Israel sure did, and we sure do, right? So a lot of these psalms here tend to have a darker tone and a heavier message.

And so this psalm is written by Asaph. Asaph, if you remember, he is a chief worship leader. In fact, he was appointed by David, and you can read about that in 1 Chronicles.

And he's credited for writing 12 of the psalms in Scripture. The time period is unknown. We don't know when this was written. We can probably make an assumption it's around 10th century B.C.

Because that's when King David and King Solomon were reigning. And the circumstance is also unknown. It's very possible, like I said, with the rest of the psalms in this collection of Book 3, it could very well be a national crisis.

In fact, I kind of am leaning that way, and we'll get there as to why later. But yet also, it's definitely a personal crisis, isn't it? What we've read here, we hear Asaph crying out personally to God.

And it's also, I believe, a deliberate choice to not say what the situation is. So that other worshipers, in their different circumstances, can adapt to what he is leading the church through in song.

Because ultimately, right, Psalm 77, as are all the psalms, are songs. Songs of praise, songs of lament, songs of remembrance. But one thing for sure, don't lose this point too, it's that it is one man's personal suffering, right?

This is Asaph's suffering that he's put into public worship. We've gotten to do that this morning, right? We've taken some of the sufferings of Israel and sung them in our worship.

Thank you, Dylan, Megan, and Ethan for leading us this morning in so many songs that sung of God's salvific power, whether through Christ or through his work with the Israelites, through the Exodus, through the many countless times, his mighty right hand is present.

So our first point as we look at this, we're going to look at mostly verses 1 through 9 here. If this clicker is going to do the job, let's see. Am I hitting the wrong button? Turn, down, lift. I did turn it on.

Is it up and down? No, I don't think it's working today. Oh, well, man. Do you mind expanding the next slide? Thank you, brother. So this next verse, here we see a progression here of the first point is the cry out to God.

This is Asaph's cry to God. And he's calling out in faith, and he's speaking incredibly honestly, isn't he? He doesn't hide, he doesn't pretend, and he doesn't suppress, right?

He doesn't hold back what he's feeling. He speaks very honestly. Can you go to the next slide? Check out some of the things that he is doing here. We see that he cries aloud, right? He is seeking the Lord.

He's stretching his hand out to God, asking, God, I need you in this personal, in my day of trouble. His soul is refusing to be comforted. He's moaning when he thinks about God, when he remembers God, and he's so troubled that he cannot speak.

So let's be clear. Asaph is in some big trouble. This is a big trouble here. He's not running from God, though, is he? Right? Unlike us or others at times, we can run from God.

Asaph does not. He runs towards God. And this alone is an act of faith, right? This alone shows that he knows, and he says it in verse one, he knows that God will hear me. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.

That's really cool. That's a neat way to open a prayer, isn't it? God, I know you're going to hear this. I know you're going to hear this, so I'm going to cry out to you this morning. But verse two has kind of an interesting thing. It says his soul refuses to be comforted.

Right? My hand is stretched out in the night without wearying, but my soul refused to be comforted. This could be a reference to, if you remember in Genesis, this phrase is used for Jacob.

When Jacob hears that his son Joseph has died, it says his soul refused to be comforted. And it's actually also said again, I believe in the prophet Jeremiah, who says the same thing, that Rachel refused to be comforted after the death of her children.

But I think also it just could mean that he's refusing simple answers. Right? This is a heavy day of a problem, and simple little platitudes or small reminders, Asaph's not going to go with.

Right? Instead, what does he do? He's meditating in the night. Now that's a common theme in many of the Psalms, to meditate in the night, awake on the bed, troubled, praying, crying out to God.

I can't help but think, that's pretty relatable, isn't it? Anyone, you don't have to show your hands, but anyone ever done that? I saw a few, all right. Sorry for your suffering. But at the same time, that's an honest thing we do as believers.

And we ought to. Remember, this is going to be a blueprint. But we cry out to God, and many times it's in the middle of the night. Whether that's because in the darkness, we can't see the truth, mentally, spiritually. But also, it's just a time where our thoughts tend to weigh heavy on us, right?

Whether it's over our children, or our finances, or our work situation. So what does Asaph do? He continues, and he has this first remembrance of God in verse 3 and 4.

Oh, sorry. Can you go back up? Apologies. It says, When I remember God, I moan. So in this first remembrance, he's actually, it's painful. Right? He says, Remember God, he almost even blames him in verse 4.

It says, Now there's something happening here, and what that is, is that his circumstances are dictating his image of God's character.

That can be very dangerous, right? He doesn't stay here, so certainly not trying to chastise Asaph here, but that can be dangerous for us. So that's a quick little mini reminder of like, my circumstances, that does not dictate or define our almighty God, right?

He can blow through circumstances, and he has, and he will continue to do so. But if we look at him, and we have miss, if we catch ourselves having misunderstandings of his character and his nature, we're probably being blinded by our circumstances and feelings.

But right now, Asaph is exhausted. He's spiritually exhausted. He has a distance and disconnect between God. He's moaning, likely saying in his heart, God, where are you?

Where are you during this pain? And what are you doing? I don't know what your plan is. I don't feel it. Why? Right? The great question my wife and I joke about, start with why. And that's kind of where he's at, right?

Why, God? Why are you doing this? And we get to see our second, and we're going through this again, verse by verse, five through six, he's going to begin to have a hint of looking back in faithfulness.

And so what does he do? He considers the past. He says, I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart, that my spirit, and then my spirit made a diligent search.

So he's remembering how he felt when he had first come through, and had gotten to the other side, of potentially similar situations, of other painful days of trouble.

What were those like? I'm trying to remember my song, and I'm remembering getting through these, and so his spirit does a diligent search, and it yields something very, very interesting, but very real, very authentic.

Next slide, brother. Thanks, man. These are six questions that Asaph has. I had to split one of them up from the verse, but just know that he has six questions here. His questions are, will the Lord spurn forever?

Will the Lord never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Has he, in anger, shut up his compassion? Man, these are heavy questions, right? And let's be real. I don't know about y'all, but when I read that the first time, I thought, ooh, Asaph, easy, man.

Easy. This is the God Almighty. These questions are bold, but there's a neat difference and a distinction here. We're gonna talk about that in a second between complaining and grumbling and earnest, honest expression to God and crying out to him of where you're at and what you're thinking and feeling.

Now, it's interesting to look at one of those words. One of the words worth looking at is steadfast love, right? That third question. Has his steadfast love forever ceased? ESV translate that as this, obviously.

Steadfast love. The KJV calls it mercy. And just to add a bit of depth here, it's talking about a covenantal love and a covenantal faithfulness, right?

The covenant between God and Abram and God and David and God through Jesus to us. Oh my gosh, this is that kind of love. But that question is basically saying, has his unfailing love failed?

Has his unfailing love failed? Each of these questions, you can read into them as covenant promises between God and his people. Now, that's important because later on in his psalm, he's gonna address that covenant and that remembrance.

But right now, that's why I kind of tend to think this may be a national crisis, right? Because he's mentioning very high level, even like national type concerns and questions.

However, don't get me wrong, this is a personal prayer and it applies to us individually as well and it applies to Asaph as an individual. I think that's part of the beauty of this psalm, that it is so all-encompassing of the one walking with God.

And it applies to us here today in 2026. So in this disoriented state, Asaph is beginning to interpret God's character through his circumstances, right?

Just like before when he was remembering and kind of trying to rely on how did I get through this before? What was my song in the night? How did I get through and make it to the other side? Here he's thinking, I'm taking a diligent search and God, I got a lot of questions.

God, what is going on? Where are you? I thought I knew him and his character is pretty much what Asaph is saying. But these are not, I want to emphasize this, these are not theological conclusions.

He is not landing on these as truths, right? What these are, are emotional questions. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Nothing wrong with that at all.

He is having emotional questions because we have emotions. God created us to have emotions. Notice that he's also not rebuked for having these questions and for asking.

He is feeling abandoned and judged and forgotten and punished, but these are honest questions from the heart. Now in scripture, there's about, at least I looked into, about 170 questions in the Psalms.

It's a lot. And most of them ask the question, why? Why God? This tells us that it is okay and right to earnestly and honestly speak with the Lord.

That's a difference between grumbling and complaining. Now, when you think of those words, you might be reminded of like in Genesis, or I'm sorry, Exodus, after they had been delivered, it says that people were grumbling and complaining to Moses, right?

Well, are they speaking to God? No, they are speaking behind his back. And so that's a bit of a difference. A difference in speaking to God in an honest, earnest way and speaking behind his back and having a lack of trust and faith, right?

Now these questions are rather rhetorical in nature, right? A lot of them kind of answer themselves because the truth within it is present. And another thing to notice is that the psalmist, while we can absolutely be sure that he is a sinner, just like any one of us, he doesn't seem to be, in this psalm, having a particular sin come to mind.

And I mention that because he's kind of giving a voice to that general floating guilt we can sometimes have, which is, God, I'm suffering. I'm wondering, am I suffering because I'm guilty of something that I'm not aware I'm guilty of?

That's a hard place to be in, isn't it? Am I unconsciously unconscious of how I have offended you? Again, there seems to be no specific sin here.

And he's asking, is God being vengeful toward me? And am I not aware why? Thankfully, praise the Lord, he does not finish an end here, does he? Let's go next slide to our second point, which is that he begins to now remember God's faithfulness.

This is a turning point for the psalmist. He doesn't answer the six questions directly. He actually lets him kind of float in the air and stay there. But instead, right here in the direct middle of this psalm, which is very much by design, that's really cool, but the beauty of the psalms is the structure often has a very intentional method.

Just like songs we sing today, right? We have a verse, a chorus, a bridge. They have their purposes in structure. But in the very middle of the psalm, excuse me, he said, then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.

I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

That word appeal is a really funky word in Hebrew. I gotta be honest. I kept tripping over this one for a while. It means pierced or wounded. So, at first I'm like, how did we get to appeal from pierced or wounded?

But I think it actually makes a lot of sense. Praise the Lord for revealing that. Because it's essentially saying he's been struck by truth. He's appealing because he has been hit and struck and wounded.

It actually also means to bore into by this truth here. Asaph begins to speak and preach truth to himself. He remembers the years of the right hand of the Lord.

He remembers the deeds of the Lord. He remembers the wonders and miracles of old. And so he ponders and meditates on them. That's very deliberate. It's very intentional, right? He's putting forth energy.

Now that right hand, that phrase, right hand of the Lord, it means his might. And we can see that kind of clearly in Moses' song in Exodus. If you're in Exodus 15 at some point, check out Moses' song of the Red Sea.

I'm going to quote it right here. Your right hand, O Lord, O glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. You stretched out your right hand and the earth swallowed them.

Asaph's remembering that. Asaph's writing that here. Hold on now. I remember what you did with the Red Sea. Now check out something kind of subtle, subtle, but present. Let's go to the next slide.

He has a reflection change in direction. Okay? What once was inward, his feelings, has now transformed to outward, the truths, right?

The truths, the facts, the history. What once was, excuse me, present, his circumstances, is now moving to past. He's recalling the redemption and the rescue of God.

We may not see it totally here in these verses. You're going to see it in verse 13 and onward, but he shifts from I, God, I am crying out to you, I am distressed, I, which is not bad.

Please don't say that. That's like, here he goes. He's talking about I. You know, that's pride, shame. No, he's having heartfelt prayer, right? But he then shifts his focus to you, God, to you, and he addresses him. And that's what's neat.

The last thing is he speaks, goes from speaking about God to God. He addresses God. Let's go into that next slide.

God, here in verse 13, is where he begins to do this. He actually launches into praise, into worship. He says, your way is holy, not his own way. Great, verse 13, he has another question.

What God is great like our God? That's the seventh question. If you're someone who cares about numbers, my buddy Ben Parker's not here. Dang it. We always joke about numbers in our community group. Come to community group.

You can join in on the Ad Inside Joke. No, just kidding. But that's the seventh question here. And what a question that is. What God is like our God? Right? He deliberately, let's say that again, he deliberately, there we go, recalls the character and the works of God.

Let's notice them all. Okay? Your way, oh God, is holy. God is holy. What God is great like our God? God is great. He is greatness. Jesus says in Luke, why do you call me great?

Only the Lord God is great. Right? He's the Lord. Verse 14, I will remember your works of wonders. God does miracles and wonderful, powerful things.

Does he not? He's done it in your lives. He's done it in Israel's history. He will continue to do it. God is powerful. He said, you made known your might among the peoples. God redeems, verse 15, with your arm, that's that right arm again, you redeemed your people.

And then also, I love this, the children of Jacob and Joseph. You make covenant. God, you make covenant. You make promises. You are faithful. We sung about that to God's faithfulness today.

What's that referring to? With the children of Jacob and Joseph. Those would be the Israelites. Where were they after Jacob and Joseph or during that time? They're in Egypt. They're in Egypt.

So he's referring, he's been a bit on the, not abstract, but on a higher level praising God. Right? And he's going to get a little more specific in a moment, but he's talking about you saving the children of Jacob and Joseph from Egypt to the promised land.

And that's huge. He is now allowing these truths to reshape his perspective of God. Nothing around Asaph has changed. Right? His circumstances the same.

Only thing that has changed is his focus. He does not merely remember, as I just said, abstract truths about God, but he remembers history.

Right? This happened. He is recalling what God has done, not just to his family and lineage, knowing that he was around during the time of David, but also even further back.

He's going, man, he's going to like the OG Israelites. Right? He's talking about the ones who were rescued and freed from Egypt. And so now, in this psalm, and we're going to go to the next slide here in our third point, he is going from the general to the specific acts of God's redeeming work.

So this third point is recalling God's mighty works. And what he does is he meditates on Exodus in kind of a dark yet powerful way. In verse 16, check out what he does.

He personifies the water. He says, when the waters saw you, obviously waters don't have eyes, but he says, oh God, when they saw you, they were afraid.

Indeed, the deep trembled. So they are seeing God and they tremble. And at the same time, as Christians, we know that all creation is subject to God.

Amen? And we see that in Jesus Christ when he calms the wind and the waves, right? It's cool. We see that he did that here too, didn't he? That God, man, he is something else. But he's recalling that.

He's recalling of Exodus when God came to the waters and split them wide, right? Verses 17 and 18. This is kind of an interesting one because it may, well, we'll see.

It says, the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder, your arrows flashed on every side, the crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind, your lightning lighted up the world, the earth trembled and shook.

I asked my wife if she knew who, anyone know Cecil B. DeMille? Anyone know their name? Oh, yeah, I think so. All right. The Ten Commandments. Who's seen the Ten Commandments? Charlton Heston, let my people go.

That was a terrible impression. Right? Remember this, right? I think in his film adaptation, there was some lightning, right? There may have been some lightning, there might have been some rain, but I got to say, if you read the book of Exodus, that's not present in the breaking of the waves.

So, what does that mean? Now, this very well, hear this out, it very well could be Asaph's poetic explanation of Exodus. This is a cosmic event, you guys, between God and his creation, the creator meeting, or sorry, it's creation, water, meeting the creator.

So, it's very well that this is him showing how powerful that is when he split it in two. It also could be, and it does match very well, to Exodus 19. If you remember, this is when the Israelites came before Mount Sinai and Moses went up the mountain.

This happened. If this happened all right there, there was lightning and thunder and the earth certainly did tremble. And it's possible that then Asaph is combining God's redemption story of Exodus 14 and 15 with God's revelation to man, which is awesome.

And it also, and this is the third possibility, that this was the scene during Exodus. We don't know, but I tell you, regardless of which of those it means, this is a powerful, mighty God that Asaph is appealing to, right?

Let's go to the next slide to see where this goes. He now says, again, he's recalling his mighty works. He said, your way, what did he say his way was before, by the way? It's holy. Your holy way was through the sea.

Your path was through the great waters, yet your footprints were not seen. That's a neat thing to say. I really like that line.

Yet your footprints were unseen. God, you opened it up. You led us through. We didn't see you. We didn't see you there. There's a comfort there, guys, for us now, and certainly for Asaph then, and absolutely for the Israelites then, that his, I'm sorry, God often moves in ways that we cannot trace, right?

Anyone relate to that? His past faithfulness, though, it guarantees his present trustworthiness. Let's say that one more time. His past faithfulness, man, it guarantees his present trustworthiness.

And so how does he conclude this psalm? He concludes it with verse 20. He said, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. He's speaking of it, of God, like a shepherd, right?

Let's not miss that, that cool illustration there. Like a shepherd, you led by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Those are leaders we could see, right? We could, they did see, they would have seen Moses and Aaron.

I am, not just me, I think a lot of Bible commentators think that it's possible this isn't just about through the sea, but through the wilderness, right? Moses and Aaron were leading the Israelites throughout that whole journey from captivity in Egypt to the promised land, right, of Israel.

So we, we got a lot of cool Exodus images here that Asaph has touched upon. He's touched upon his mighty work of splitting the sea and leading the people through. He's talked about the Mount Sinai meeting and revelation of God to man and then here, very potentially, through the wilderness on its way to the promised land.

Now there's a little observation of a word that's worth talking about, frankly. A lot of Psalms will repeat words, right? And when you notice that, kind of like when Jesus would say like, truly, truly, I say to you, like stop and go, okay, what do we got going on here?

Because there's something that he wants to tell you, right? Not always, right? I'm not, anyways. But the one here I think that's cool is the word hand. It's said three times here in this scripture.

The first time is Asaph reaching out his hand to God. God, I am in a day of trouble. Help me. Where are you? Right? The second time he talks about a hand is the righteous right hand of God.

Right? I remember your right hand. Hold on. I'm going to remember, God, your mighty deeds, the ones when you split the ocean, God. And then the third time, which is very different, very gentle, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

By the hand. So now you have this picture of God being with his people, not always visibly, not always with a clear answer to every question, but with a presence by the hand of those who he had appointed to lead his people.

We can't always see it. We do not always see where God is going, but he does in fact hold us by his hand. And as Christians, we also have many more scriptures that we can rest upon, such as, we are in the Father's hand.

We cannot be snatched from it. This is God's mighty right hand. Asaph is now and had, by the end, remembered the character of God.

He remembered the works of God and he was moved to worship in spite of his circumstances. Hallelujah. Right?

Hallelujah. And I know right now there are many of us who are suffering and are going through a season of pain or loss or confusion and frustration. Follow the blueprint of this psalm.

Not for the resolution of your circumstance, but for closeness with God, for clarity and focus on him to allow him to bring a holy way through your life so that he may be glorified and you may find hope.

Because there's also eternal hope for us in Christ Jesus. Let's go to the next slide. Like I said, in my humble opinion, this is a fantastic blueprint of how to suffer well and trust in God.

This is kind of the steps that we see from this. We see crying honestly to God. Then Asaph brings his questions instead of hiding them and he's transparent. He says these questions that again, you kind of be like, oh man, I don't know about that one.

Maybe keep that to yourself. He goes and he chooses to remember God's character and past faithfulness so he's in the mind. He meditates on his mighty works.

He trusts in him even when God's ways remain mysterious and unknown and then he finds renewed hope before the circumstances change.

That is beautiful. That is beautiful. Before the circumstances change, his heart has been renewed in hope. Now, like the immortal words of reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it.

Let's take a look at what the scripture says. What examples do we have from scripture? So I'm going to show a few here for the sake of time. I'm not going to go through all these. But I'm going to show you six examples from the Old Testament and six examples from the New Testament where this very blueprint is followed.

Now again, I'm not trying to say like, do A by C, and you'll just feel amazing. Of course not. But this is a way to direct your heart and direct your focus back to God. And I'll speak to the first one here, Hannah.

She cries out to God for her barrenness, right? It says year after year she would go to the house of the Lord and her rival, which is, what do you call that? Wife-in-law?

No. The other wife, we'll call it that. I just thought of that. Britt, you're going to have to figure that one out. Sister wife. Oh, is there we go. It doesn't matter. But the point is, she's not, the point is, she is putting Hannah down and belittling her and tormenting her and yet continually she goes to the house of the Lord to pray, right?

And she continues to seek Lord in prayer and what happens? Eli sees her and goes, are you drunk? Like, you're murmuring, you've got to stop drinking. And she goes, no, no, no, I've been pouring out my soul before the Lord.

And then we see that after she seeks the Lord and receives a blessing, there is hope. there is hope. In her face, it says, it no longer looks like she was crying. Let's go to the next slide of the New Testament reminders.

There's quite a few here. Mary Magdalene and Peter, Paul, Silas and the apostles. Paul and Silas, think about them.

What did they do after they had been beaten and chained in prison? But instead of allowing despair to consume them, they pray and they sing songs.

They remember who God is before God changes their circumstances. The earthquake came later, but their worship came first. That's powerful.

Now finally, the greatest example is Jesus. It's Jesus. Who cries aloud in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.

Who feels forsaken, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Who remembers and recalls God's works through his suffering. Who trusts, despite unanswered questions, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Sorry. Who has hope after darkness, the resurrection on the third day. Hallelujah. Jesus is the perfect example of the fulfillment of this blueprint.

He had such hope that he endured the cross, so much so that he said, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Let's go to the next slide, please, brother.

So I have a few tactics of application. I call it that because they're practical and because I like the word tactic. No, I'm just kidding. The first one is that faith recalls what feelings forget.

The psalm never dismisses emotions, but it refuses to let emotion have the final word. We walk by faith, not by sight, right? And just as Asaph looked to God as his redeemer, today, Jesus is our redemption and is the fulfillment of our promises and the assurance of our hope.

Faith moves us from inward to outward towards Christ, from present suffering to past redemption, Christ over sin and death, and from self-focused to God-focused.

Excuse me. Let's go to the next slide, brother. The second point is that faith is communal. Asaph has a very personal psalm, but it's shared in corporate worship, isn't it? Don't go it alone, brothers and sisters.

Don't go it alone. We are called to bear each other's burdens, to not neglect gathering together, and to encourage each other daily. I encourage you to find a brother or sister that you trust and confide in them through the power of the Holy Spirit, you're suffering.

You're trouble in that day. And in that, I want to launchpad, I guess, into community groups. We have several community groups that meet weekly, and a facet of that is a dedicated time of lifting each other up in prayer before the Lord.

If you're not involved and plugged into one, I cannot implore you strong enough to. That is how you grow stronger in the faith. That is how you grow stronger with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You grow in relationship and ultimately in love and adoration of God.

And this one's kind of funky, but I like music, so here you go. Worship alongside another believer. It doesn't just, physically, absolutely, corporate worship. But I would encourage you to seek out when you're suffering music, particularly music that has been written by someone during their suffering, and walk alongside that person.

They've likely come through it, or maybe they haven't. The circumstance, again, doesn't really matter. But that walking alongside someone musically is very powerful. My wife and I, man, 2018 was a year.

That was a year. One of the hardest times, I had lost both my grandfathers within four weeks of each other, and we had a miscarriage. And we lost our Apollos. Excuse me.

That was really hard. Not because I didn't trust God, but because I didn't know why. Why God, right? Just like Asaph. Why are you doing this? Oh, man, sorry.

And I remember, my wife and I found a lot of joy, well, sort of, eventually joy, but in the moment, comfort, in this particular album by Matt Hammett.

If you've ever heard of the band Sank This Real, he was their former lead singer, phenomenal author, writer, singer, everything. But he wrote this beautiful album called Every Falling Tear. And it had to do with, at the time, actually, not the loss of his son.

His son had been diagnosed with a hole in his heart and was not projected, expected to live very long. And so he wrote this album about his one man's personal suffering, just like Asaph does here.

And every song is just a lament, but a trust in God. It is so beautiful. If I could command you to listen to it, I would, but I can't. So all I can do is implore you, please go listen to it.

Again, I don't know Matt, so this isn't a plug for him, but it is a plug as an encouragement to listen to something that you can suffer alongside with and have your heart lifted. Another example of a song or music that is communal and helpful is the band Starfield.

We sing a song by them, Rain and Us. You guys know that one? So good. So good. Well, they have another song called I've Got Something to Say. It's probably a very similar parallel to this psalm where he's literally just saying, God, I've got something to say.

It's been one of those days and I'm finding it hard to believe. Right? That's actually verse one. And there's a bridge here which is the turning point and it's that help me not forget in darkness the things that I believed in light.

So Brit hears me say that just about every day. That is an important lyric but honestly a truth. Help me not, God, forget in darkness when I'm in a circumstance that stinks, that I hate it, I don't like it, I don't know why I'm here.

Help me not forget the truths and the things that I believe in light. Let's go to the last slide, brother. Yeah, that is the last slide. Faith finally remembers.

Right? And that's the name of the sermon but that's the most important or one of the most important applications we can have because Asaph remembers God's mighty deeds and his character by actively meditating upon them.

And we can do that and we can only be doing that if we are in fact reading his word. We can't remember what we don't know, right? If we're not reading it, we don't have the spiritual armory to draw swords from to combat the lies of the enemy, to combat even the lies of our feelings and circumstances that may tell us one thing about the character of God.

Fighter verses to respond to doubt and disorientation. Will the Lord spurn forever? No. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No.

He will neither leave us nor forsake us. Will he spurn forever? No. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Will the Lord never again be favorable? No. We have been justified by faith.

We have peace with God through Jesus. Now is that cool or what? Through the Red Sea man was his way through Jesus is also and is ultimately his way. Has his steadfast love never ceased?

No. God shows us his love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Hallelujah. Can I get an amen? There it is. That's right. Are his promises at an end for all time? No.

All their promises find their yes in Christ Jesus. You combat these distorted circumstantial feeling centric views which are real. Don't dismiss them but combat them with the word of the Lord and with the memory of his greatness.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? No. Even when we were dead in our trespasses we were made alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Has he in anger shut up his compassion? No. His mercy triumphs over judgment in Christ. Look at that. All we did here was remember and recall the word of God and we have answered Asaph's question.

So when you think these questions go to God's word with your fighter verse your sword in hand and be prepared to do battle. Another element of faith remembering is being and walking in gratitude.

It's not just for Thanksgiving, right? And it leads us to worship. I know Pastor Mike did this growing up I think a few of you too. Writing down things you're grateful for on like stickies and then review them at the end of the year.

And then finally I would also encourage you to have a prayer journal if you can to recall the works of the right hand of the Lord because that is the right hand that is holding you. So the lost traveler does not create a new path he follows what he remembers and that is Psalm 77.

When darkness hides the path remember when prayers seem unanswered remember when God's footsteps seem invisible and his voice hidden remember that God has never ceased leading his people the same God who has made the path through the sea.

Let's pray. Dear Jesus we trust you we trust your word we thank you for your faithfulness we pray that we would grow in your loving kindness rest in that loving kindness would your hope come despite circumstances not changing.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.