[0:00] The following message is given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.
[0:15] ! God praying for the nations, and suddenly he hits trouble, and he hits it again in these verses, but these are wonderful verses, and I hope I can do them justice. So let us read Psalm 6.
[0:47] To the choir master with stringed instruments, according to the shiment, a psalm of David.
[0:58] O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
[1:19] My soul also is greatly troubled, but O Lord, how long? Turn, O Lord, deliver me, save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
[1:36] For in death there is no remembrance of you. In Sheol, who will give you praise? Verse 8.
[2:13] Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer.
[2:26] All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled. They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. May God bless the preaching of his word.
[2:41] In an article I recently read, the author describes the grief of losing his wife after a seven and a half year battle with cancer. What's it like to lose your wife?
[2:55] He said he's been asked many times. He says, and I quote, he says, a number of words come to mind. One is invisible. He continues, I feel invisible in plain sight.
[3:07] Not physically invisible. I'm a big guy, so it's hard to miss me. And so many have blessed me and my boys with care and attention. So I'm not saying I don't feel cared for. I actually feel unworthy and humbled by people's kindness.
[3:21] I mean, invisible, almost in the sense of when a girl looks at a guy in a movie and says, you see me? She means there's a person in the world who gets her, who understands her with the depth of intimacy no one does.
[3:41] Of course, in the movies, they usually say this after meeting one another five minutes ago. But after 14 years, he says with Carrie, I felt like she saw me.
[3:52] All of me. And love me anyway. The good, the bad, the ugly. She saw my imperfections and challenged me to grow.
[4:06] And now the one person who saw me is gone. As he describes, though, the grief remains.
[4:17] He says grief is an unpredictable lurking beast that strikes you when you're least expecting it. And even in the most unusual places like a target bathroom.
[4:29] Day after day, he writes, the grief remains and the feeling of being invisible remains as well. This morning, David describes a similar feeling in Psalm 6.
[4:43] David's overwhelmed with grief. He's weak. He's weak. He's deeply troubled. He's plagued by a sense of being invisible. Now, he knows he's not invisible to his enemies.
[4:54] They know who he is. They know where he lives. They know what he's up to. They oppose him and work all kinds of evil against him. But he's begun to believe he's invisible to God. That the Lord no longer sees his pain.
[5:10] Lord no longer hears his cries. That the Lord no longer comes to his help. In fact, the psalm is dominated by his prayers and his pleas as if to say his voice is the only voice he hears.
[5:24] Perhaps you've been there. Perhaps grief has left you alone. And unlike everyone around you, perhaps grief has left a feeling of weariness that is settled onto your soul at the same dead end job, at the same unpredictable struggles, at the same predictable but unpredictable month with this invisible virus.
[5:49] Perhaps you've begun to believe that your prayers make little difference, that they don't rise above the ceiling of your room. Perhaps your zeal for what's next has been sapped and your hope has been drained out.
[6:05] Where we're going in a word is when tears are many and comforts few, make your prayer to God and wait. We're going to break this out in three points.
[6:22] The first one is cry, but don't become calloused. Cry, but don't become calloused. We don't know the details of David's hardship in this psalm.
[6:33] He didn't give us all those details, but we know David views his hardship as discipline from his heavenly father. If you look down there with me in verse one, he says, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.
[6:46] So David's not praying that the Lord would, that he would not experience God's discipline. He knows he's already experiencing it. You see, don't discipline me in your wrath. So he doesn't pray that, that he doesn't experience discipline.
[6:59] He prays that he would not experience God's discipline in wrath. Right now he's being disciplined in love from his heavenly father. And he's crying out to the Lord to not grow angry with him and to not turn his discipline into punishment.
[7:16] In order to understand this psalm, we had to break out a very important biblical principle right here. That all hardship for believers becomes discipline in the hands of our heavenly father.
[7:27] All hardship for believers becomes discipline in the hands of our heavenly father. Now we often think about discipline as something we do. We, we get up in the morning.
[7:38] We set the alarm. We go to read. We get up. We go to work hard. We go to put on godliness and to train ourselves up. And yes, it is something to do, but something we do.
[7:49] But discipline is also something God does to us. God is our father, trains us up as children. He disciplines us with grace, Titus 2 says.
[8:01] He trains us to renounce, to say no to ungodliness and yes to, to godliness, to, to live upright, self-controlled lives in this present age.
[8:12] He disciplines us with the spirit, fills us with the spirit so that our lives come under the sway of the spirit. And we're dominated and marked by the fruit of the spirit so that we put the death, the deeds of the body by the spirit and so to live.
[8:25] But he also disciplines us with hardship and adversity. As our father, he doesn't give us what we deserve. That's not what I'm talking about.
[8:36] Nor do we reap fully what we sow. But he does bring us under the discipline of hardship to reveal the waywardness of our heart and to make us more like Christ.
[8:48] Hebrews 12 defines this in a very helpful way, which we have for you. He says, my son, don't regard lightly. Don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't lose heart when he rebukes you.
[9:00] Because the Lord disciplines the one he loves. And he chastens, same word used here in Psalm 6, everyone he accepts as his son.
[9:11] Endure hardship then as discipline. God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? Do you see, he's putting this in a context where he's saying, Endure hardship and adversity as loving discipline of our heavenly father to sons and daughters that he loves.
[9:30] So hardship and discipline, according to Hebrews 12, and a lot of that's taken from Psalm 3, I think. So hardship and discipline becomes a form of child training in God's hands.
[9:48] Biblically, an undisciplined child is a sign not of love, but of neglect and hate. Whoever spares the rod hates the son.
[9:58] That's what the Bible says. Some of you kids don't like that verse, right? So the Lord brings us under the discipline of hardship and adversity as a sign of love.
[10:09] And notice in that text, can we put that back up? Hebrews 12. Notice when he says, endure hardship as discipline. There's no adjective there. There's no qualifying adjective.
[10:22] He doesn't say, endure this hardship. If it gets really bad, if you had to walk through cancer, endure that hardship as discipline or that one over there or some hardship as discipline, like the really hard stuff.
[10:33] He says, endure all hardship as discipline. And Jerry Bridges clarifies this for us in this quote that I have. He says, endure all hardship as discipline.
[10:45] I don't want to trivialize hardship, but all of us know there are varying degrees of adversity. Some is life-shattering, such as the one I described in the introduction.
[10:57] The death of a loved one or permanently disabling injury. At the opposite end of the spectrum are situations that are no more than temporary nuisances, such as an unexpected visitor dropping by when you're working against a tight deadline.
[11:13] All of these circumstances and events, whether trivial or serious, are intended by God to be a means of developing more Christ-like character.
[11:23] Now that is huge. No sense in comparing your trial to somebody else. All hardship, whether temporary and more inconvenient or disastrous, in the Lord's hands are disciplined to produce Christ-like character.
[11:42] Now you're thinking, what's this got to do with this psalm? Well, how do we respond to discipline is what David shows us. In a word, in these opening verses, cry, but don't become calloused.
[11:54] So much like Hebrews 12, it says, don't lose heart in discipline, but also don't make light of it. Don't dismiss it. Don't overlook it. Don't become calloused in discipline. So David models how to do this, I think, in this psalm.
[12:10] He says, first, admit your sin. Admit your sin. In this, even though David is being opposed by enemies and workers of evil, this discipline has caused him to search his own heart.
[12:23] As God often would have it, this discipline has riveted his focus on his heart and his sin. That's what he says in Psalm 1.
[12:33] Even though he's being opposed, when he comes before the Lord, he says, rebuke me not, nor discipline me. Be gracious to me, because in my heart I see reasons for your judgment.
[12:47] That's what he's saying. He's convinced of his own sin. While they're doing evil, David is burdened by his sinful response. Now, I don't know what it is. Perhaps he's begun to doubt God's calling on his life.
[12:58] Perhaps he's lost faith in God, rectifying this situation. Perhaps he's resorted to ungodly actions and attitudes of anger, bitterness, and revenge. Whatever it is, David is burdened not by his enemies, but by his own sin and his own heart.
[13:16] God often uses hardship and adversity to turn our attention off others and onto him. And when we encounter God in this way, we're often become captivated, not by the sin and evil of others, but by the sin and evil within our own hearts.
[13:34] God brings us into his presence to become convinced of something more important. That's what happens with David.
[13:45] This discipline gets his attention and reveals this waywardness in his heart. So he admits his sin, then he admits his fears. Look in verse 2.
[13:55] He says, Heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. The word for trouble here is literally terrified.
[14:09] My bones are terrified. This discipline, this situation, these enemies have shaken me to my bones. My soul is terrified.
[14:21] He's completely taken up. It's not merely physical that he's afraid of. It's the shaking of his soul and his trust in God. He's afraid for his soul. He's afraid God has forgotten him and has left him to himself and will give him what he deserves.
[14:37] And so he says, Heal me, restore me, help me. I think David illustrates this very well. Our fears talk to us in discipline.
[14:47] And adversity, they tell us what's going to happen. They keep us up all through the night, playing out, worst case scenario.
[14:57] They tell us how bad it's going to get. And we must talk back to him. But first we must admit him before God. We come trembling before him.
[15:08] Hardship and adversity make us fearful, but we bring our fears to God. Whether it's fears of schools reopening, fears of coronavirus, fears about this coming election, fears about the unstable economy.
[15:21] And that's just stuff that's out there. It's not in here. Admit your doubt. After that, in verse 3b, he says, But you, O Lord, how long?
[15:36] His opening plea ends abruptly. But you, O Lord, how long? It's as if he cannot finish the sentence. It's too painful. How long will you do nothing? How long will you watch me fall short?
[15:48] He stops short then and confesses his doubt. I just don't know anymore, Lord. I think it's very helpful for us to see right here that hardship and adversity, though they're very painful and real, we must be reminded to not become callous.
[16:05] Don't harden our hearts like Pharaoh. Don't bury it. Being betrayed does not make you wise. Going through heartache does not make you strong.
[16:15] Getting older does not make you mature. But admitting your sin, your fears and your doubts, and hardship and adversity gets you on the path to true wisdom and not becoming callous.
[16:26] When tears are many and comforts few, make your prayer to God and wait. Make your prayer to God and wait. Point two, groan, but do not grumble.
[16:38] Groan, but do not grumble. I don't know if you're like me, but when trouble strikes, our first temptation is to grumble. Just this week, I got stung by a wasp.
[16:50] Now you think a big deal. While beating the community group in pig, I got stung by this wasp. It was a little red at the end of community group. Or it was a little red immediately, but by the end of community group, it was like the wooden hand of Adam Sandler's friend and Happy Gilmore.
[17:06] It was just massive. This big fat hand. I tried ice. I tried an antihistamine cocktail, essentially, trying to knock the swelling down, but the swelling did not budge through the night.
[17:20] The next morning, Kim just saw my fat hand and started dying laughing at my hand. I was going to her for some pity and some comfort, and that's what she did to me, you know, but I wasn't laughing.
[17:32] I wish I could say I shrugged it off, but I began to grumble in my heart. I couldn't close my fist. It feels so good. You know, you guys take that for granted. I've been walking through it this week.
[17:43] I couldn't fit in my workout gloves anymore, and I had to sleep with my arm raised and leaning up against the headboard, which got a little annoying, and sadly, my response is often our response when trouble of any kind moves in.
[17:58] Maybe stepping on a Lego early in the morning or something way more serious. Hardship often brings out grumbling and complaining, and David, as he continues to pray in these few verses, teaches us how to groan without grumbling, how to groan without grumbling, and immediately David turns to God.
[18:19] Look in verse 4. It's a turning point. So David ends abruptly, but you, O Lord, how long? Then he says, turn, O Lord, and deliver me.
[18:30] Deliver my life. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. He doesn't continue and begin complaining. He turns to God and begins to take his groaning to the Lord and refuses to let it turn to grumbling.
[18:46] I mean, in so many ways, if our life was just rid of grumbling, it would be a much happier place. I mean, can you imagine a day without grumbling about your spouse? Imagine a day without complaining about your children.
[19:00] Imagine a day without bellyaching about your job. Imagine a day without criticizing where you are in life. Imagine a day without moping around for not being noticed for something you did.
[19:11] When trouble strikes, David teaches us to turn to God. And I love that and not to grumble. Then he teaches us to place our future in God's hands.
[19:23] So he says, turn, O Lord, deliver my life. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death, there is no remembrance of you. In Sheol, who will give you praise?
[19:35] Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. Save me because of your promise. He doesn't say, save me for the sake of my goodness. Save me, he says, save me for the sake of your promise, because of your promise and nothing else.
[19:50] Now, we talked about steadfast love last week, but I want us to lean into this a little more this week. That word right there is the Hebrew word hesed. It refers to God's unwavering commitment, God's unwavering faithfulness to his covenant with his people.
[20:08] David's not merely reciting some formula. He's calling on God to do what God does. No, you know, Deuteronomy 7, 9 says, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God who keeps covenant and hesed, steadfast love to a thousand generations.
[20:28] And this is huge. Now, years ago, someone asked the late R.C. Sproul, if you know anything about R.C. Sproul, he was quite a character.
[20:39] Somebody asked him what his favorite verse in the Bible is, and he said, Genesis 15, 17. Now, if you've ever read Genesis 15, 17, you get how this is a very odd choice.
[20:54] But in so many ways, it actually uncovers what hesed is all about. So if you remember, if you go through Genesis, we begin in chapter 1. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but they go through the flood and everything like that.
[21:05] And then God kind of starts over in Genesis 12. He makes a promise to Abraham who comes out of Ur of Chaldeans. He says, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to give you land. I'm going to give you a nation. I'm going to, you know, a people as numerous as the stars and the sand on the seashore are going to come through you.
[21:20] But in Genesis 15, he takes that promise and seals it with a covenant. So essentially, the Lord comes to Abraham.
[21:31] Abraham says, how do I know this is going to be sure? And God seals it with a covenant. Now, in the old days, a covenant was often made between two people. They might shake hands on something, just like Abraham did with Abimelech.
[21:45] He made a covenant. They shook hands. They agreed to something. They sacrificed together. And they said, if I don't come in, if I don't come true on my side, you can take me out. And if you don't come true on your side, I'll take you out.
[21:59] It's kind of like cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. I mean, there is a similar thing going on. You know, you're saying, if I fail, stick that needle in my eye. Well, that's kind of like a typical covenant work.
[22:12] They would make a covenant. They made a binding agreement to uphold these standards. And if somebody didn't uphold it, then they got taken out.
[22:25] Well, God makes a covenant somewhat like that in Genesis 15. It's a very strange chapter. God tells Abraham to go get animals for sacrifice, birds and all these different things. And you should go home and read this chapter.
[22:37] And you'll wonder why it's a mysterious verse for R.C. Sproul to love. But he tells him to go and take these animals to sacrifice, cut them in half and to lay them out. So Abraham, being the faithful man that he is, he's a man of faith.
[22:51] He goes and lays out all these sacrifices and it forms kind of an alleyway in between the sacrifices. And then as the story goes on, Abraham falls into a deep sleep, a deep, dark sleep.
[23:04] And then the Lord, represented in a fire pot and a flaming torch. And I promise this is going somewhere. The Lord comes and goes through the alleyway in between the sacrifices while Abraham is asleep.
[23:20] So you see what's going on. Abraham lays these things out. He makes his sacrifices. Just when he thinks there's going to be an agreement between him and God, he falls asleep and God passes through. The point of all that is only God makes the covenant.
[23:36] Only God makes the covenant there. He doesn't ask for Abraham to enter into the covenant. Essentially what God says, if I don't uphold my promise of steadfast love and mercy to you and all your descendants, regardless of what sins you commit, I will cut myself off.
[23:58] That's what he's saying. I will uphold this covenant by myself. That's incredible. He's saying to Abraham, this is your guarantee.
[24:09] Your guarantee is not going to be in your ability to uphold this covenant. Your guarantee is going to be in me who passes through alone. I make my promise and I bind myself completely to it.
[24:22] Now what he's saying is the plan that I have for my people will not be purchased through their obedience or sustained through their perseverance. The plan that I have for my people will be secured by sovereign grace alone.
[24:37] So that's what David is saying. David is saying, I've completely blown it, Lord. So save me because of your steadfast love, because of your loyalty, not because of mine, because of your faithfulness, not because of mine, because of your righteousness, not because of mine, because of your goodness, not because of mine.
[24:59] And that gets me excited. It doesn't get you excited. Sorry about that. So he's saying, save me because of your promise. And save me for your praise. Look in verse five.
[25:12] Now this is a really odd way to argue, but the Lord, David says, for in death, no one's going to remember you. And Sheol, no one's going to praise you.
[25:24] He's saying, if I die, who's going to sing praise to the Lord, the Almighty? If I perish, who's going to sing all I have is Christ. who's going to remember and give glory to God?
[25:36] He's saying, my life is all about your praise. So deliver me. But he continues. And you still see this wrestling in his soul as he grieves.
[25:48] Look down in verse six and seven. He says, I'm weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping. My eye waste away because of grief.
[25:58] It grows weak because of all my foes. So he turns to God. He places his future in God's hands, but he doesn't act like everything's okay. He's grieving these losses. David's hardship is not just spiritual and physical.
[26:12] It's emotionally exhausting. Look at that. He has this threefold verse there. I'm weary with my moaning. I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping.
[26:23] David is describing the feeling and the exhaustion of grief and weariness. It's more than sorrow. It's more than sadness.
[26:34] It's more than tiredness. It's the loss of joy. It's the lack of anticipation of good from God. It's an apathy towards change. And he stays there.
[26:49] The cure for weariness and grief is not dismissing your heart and pressing on anyway. The cure for weariness is grieving and waiting on God.
[27:03] You know, our world has very little room for grief. I've said this before. Maybe that should be a spiritual category for us, a spiritual discipline for us in a fallen world.
[27:17] Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward, what Job tells us. Life in a fallen world hurts, and we're supposed to slow down enough to grieve.
[27:30] One movie captures this powerfully, how grief is supposed to work. Lars, who's played by Ryan Gosling, I think that's how you say his name, is awaiting death and the loss of his friend Bianca as he waits for her to die.
[27:46] She's on her deathbed. We've all, or many of us have been in that scenario. One morning he wakes to see flowers and candles and prayer cards all over his porch. He's like scratching his head going, what's going on here?
[28:00] He steps back inside and notices several older ladies knitting on the couch. Makes him even more perplexed. They said, we brought casseroles.
[28:12] One of them points out, Lars goes and gets a plate and sits down quietly, moving the food around on his plate and asks, is there something I should do? No, dear, you eat.
[28:24] One of them responds. Another adds, we just came to sit. She continues, that's what people do when tragedy strikes. They come over to sit.
[28:37] I think that gets it so right. They come over to sit and to weep and to grieve. That's what David is doing.
[28:49] David is saying, literally, I'm swimming in my tears. Literally, my couch is dissolving in my tears. Grief takes time and requires waiting.
[29:00] Look, and John Piper says it like this. I think it's so helpful. I've shared this before. He says, occasionally, weep deeply over the life you hoped, that you hoped would be.
[29:12] Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face.
[29:25] Not like in a wash your face sort of way that that popular author wrote. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he's given you. That's incredible.
[29:37] If you do that, it'll change your life. When tears are many and comforts few, make your prayers to God and wait. Make your prayers to God and wait.
[29:52] Point three, wait, but don't give up on the promise. Wait, but don't give up on the promise. Even though the hardship is not removed, David waits expectantly because of the promise.
[30:05] Suddenly, the tone shifts. If you look down there in verse eight, so he's weeping all through the night. He's dissolving his bed in tears. He's swimming in tears all through the night.
[30:16] And suddenly he says, depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. Amen. The Lord has heard my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer.
[30:26] All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled. They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. He says, get away from me, all you workers of evil. Turn back.
[30:36] You should turn back right now. You should be terrified, not me. All of you be put to shame because the Lord has heard. And I love this. And as he unfolds that threefold reference to weeping in verse six, I am weary with my morning.
[30:51] Every day I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping. So he overturns it with a threefold emphasis on God hearing his prayer. Look at that in verse eight.
[31:02] Eight. The Lord has heard. The Lord has heard. The Lord accepts. Suddenly his confidence turns.
[31:14] But nothing's happened. Nothing's happened. Nothing's happened.
[31:28] All my enemies shall be ashamed is still in the future terms. Nothing's changed for David.
[31:43] Externally. Nothing's changed for David physically. But something changes spiritually. And this is incredible.
[31:59] It's actually before you see the answer that you learn to lean on the promise. That's what David's teaching. And, you know, he doesn't give up on the promise.
[32:11] And actually his certainty in the promise is gained before he sees the answer. And I just think that's so incredible. And one author compares it to swimming.
[32:21] You know, anybody can swim with a life vest. Anybody can swim in a four foot pool where you can see the body. A bottom. Anybody can swim with dad bearing you up underneath the water.
[32:32] But, of course, that's not swimming. True swimming is when you plunge into the water and bear up your own weight by moving your arms and legs.
[32:44] True swimming is going out like Abraham who went out not knowing where he was going. True swimming is secured like Abraham in Genesis 15. Not by certainty. Not by an answer.
[32:55] But by the promise of God. True belief stands on the bear promise. Now, an old guy, Ebenezer Erskine, says it like this.
[33:06] True believing is not for a man to trust God and his promise only when he is borne up by sensible consolation. Now, you can tell that guy's from another century. But sensible comforts is what he's saying.
[33:19] That's not true belief. True belief is for a man to rest, stay, and bear up his soul under the bare promises of God, even when the props are withdrawn.
[33:32] Now, that makes me sing and dance. True belief is formed. Not when all the answers are clear. Not when the path is clear.
[33:43] But when the props are withdrawn. But the promise remains. So David remembers the promise. He remembers things like Deuteronomy 7, 6. For your people holy to the Lord.
[33:53] The Lord is your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. He remembers promises like 2 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people call by my name, humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I'll hear from heaven and heal, forgive their sins, and heal their land.
[34:12] Or just like we said several weeks ago, Psalm 4, 3. But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord hears when I call. Or Isaiah 30, 19. You shall weep no more. The promise of God.
[34:23] You shall surely, he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers. You.
[34:34] So wait. But stand on the promise. Stand on the promise.
[34:47] Now waiting is so hard. I remember several years ago, we were teaching our kids some of the training, that discipline in the household. Trying to teach them to wait.
[34:57] Thankfully, none of them are here, you know, today. But they might watch. But we were teaching them to wait patiently. Like if dad was in the conversation, you know, it's not your prerogative to come and interrupt it.
[35:08] And so to tap us. Give us a tap, tap, tap. And then we'll, you know, we get a pause in the conversation. We'll say, hey, what's going on? You know, something like that.
[35:18] And so we're trying to teach this and still listen to kids. And my wife was driving down the road one day. And my daughter said, said, said, mom, tap, tap, tap. I have something I want to share with you.
[35:29] Tap, tap, tap. Except she wasn't tapping. She was screaming, tapping aloud. And, you know, that's a lot of the way we are when we're waiting. Isn't it? But, Lord, tap, tap, tap.
[35:41] Don't you see? But, Lord, tap, tap. Don't you see what they're saying about me? Lord, tap, tap. How long shall I try to please you?
[35:55] But let's wait in faith. Let's stand on the bare promise of God. He who called us is faithful. He who promised is with us.
[36:07] He who found us will take us all the way home. I want to conclude with a little quote from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
[36:23] Towards the end of the book and towards the end of the series, Aslan is talking to Edmund and Lucy. Lucy says, Oh, Aslan, will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?
[36:43] Aslan says, I shall be telling you all the time, but I will not tell you how long or short the way will be, only that it lies across the river. But do not fear that, for I am the great bridge builder.
[36:57] And now come. I will open the door in the sky and send you back to your own land, back to the world that we live in. But Lucy says, Oh, please, Aslan, before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again?
[37:16] Tell us, just tell us when. Please. Oh, do, do, do make it soon. Aslan, he represents Jesus Christ. He says, Dearest, you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.
[37:30] Oh, Aslan, said Edmund and Lucy, together with despairing voices. You're two old children.
[37:43] And that doesn't help to cry. Sorry about that. You're two old children, and you must begin to come close to your own world now. It isn't Narnia, you know, sobbed Lucy.
[37:56] It's you. We shall not meet you there. And how can I live never meeting you? But you shall meet me, dear one, said Aslan.
[38:10] Are you there too? Said Edmund. I am, said Aslan. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.
[38:22] This is, this was the very reason you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little while, you may know me there forever. We don't know when Jesus is coming to take us to another world.
[38:36] We don't know how soon it'll be. We don't know when the waiting will be over, but we know this is why he's placed us here. That by knowing him here, in adversity, in hardship, we might know him better there, in glory.
[38:54] And beloved, we have a better reason to wait in faith than Lucy and Edmund. We have a better reason to wait in faith than David. We have an even better reason to wait in faith than Abraham, Rahab, Moses, Elijah, Ruth, Esther, Isaiah.
[39:11] We have the cross of Christ before us. where God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, so that with him, he might give us all things in this life and in the life everlasting.
[39:25] Let us pray. Father in heaven, we cast ourselves onto you. We confess our need for you, and we pray that you would strengthen us, strengthen our weak needs, lift up our drooping heads to wait on the promise of God.
[39:47] Lord, I pray that even as we pray this prayer with David, that we would wait like him as well, trusting in your promise, leaning not on our own understanding, but in all our ways, acknowledging you, trusting that you'll make our path straight.
[40:07] We commit our way to you, God. We pray that you would keep us secure in the steadfast love of God and in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
[40:22] We thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, Amen. You've been listening to a message given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.
[40:34] For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at trinitygraceathens.com. Amen.
[40:44] Amen.