WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.879 Now, if you do have Bibles with you, do turn to the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:11.679 and to Psalm 42 and 43. This is the last of our standalone sermons that we planned for 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:18.960 January, next Sunday, God willing. We hope to start a new series in the morning, which 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:23.879 will be the story of the Old Testament, and we'll look forward to that. Please pray about 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:29.960 that as we follow the theme of God through the Old Testament up to the coming of Jesus, 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:42.280 but today I am looking in many ways at the theme of hope. A Psalm for the season is the 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:50.120 title of the sermon. A subtitle might be hope when it's hopeless. And part of the inspiration 00:00:50.119 --> 00:01:02.359 for doing this was some of the students' Facebook status from since this week had the word hope 00:01:02.359 --> 00:01:09.719 included in them because they were publicising the Edinburgh Christian Union's mission week, 00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:16.799 this coming week, which is on the theme of hope. And I found that inspiring. That was great. 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:24.159 And then this morning, which, albeit my sermon was done and prepared by then, but this morning, 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:29.840 the Walk With Me Daily devotionals that our dear friend Billy does and has sent out to 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:40.239 us an email, the theme was hope. And I found that encouraging and helpful as well. But 00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:50.000 in order to maybe look at that whole theme, we're going to take a walk through the hopelessness 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:58.719 that the psalmist was expressing here and that may be something that you can associate with 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:06.479 in your life. You know, what do we do when things are absolutely rubbish for us as Christians? 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:12.480 And there doesn't seem to be any light and any guidance or any help spiritually when our Christian 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:19.840 lives seem to have been rubbish for ages and ages and we're struggling and we are being dealt what 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:25.039 we feel is blow after blow. And we wonder, well, what's the point of believing? What's the point 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:32.240 of being a Christian? What is, what can we do when things are like that for us? Because we can be 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:37.120 tempted to have different responses. We can be tempted to maybe just go through the motions as 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:45.680 a Christian, but not really find any peace or meaning or hope through these events. We can hear 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:53.120 people speaking verses from the Bible to us and they feel very hollow. It can feel trite and 00:02:53.120 --> 00:03:00.160 unrealistic for us. We can maybe get used to the emptiness and we can sometimes just walk away. 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:04.479 We can do what I was telling the kids earlier about and we can just turn our back. 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:13.039 Well, what does God say? We remember God is a living God and we remember His Word as a living 00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:21.120 word for us. And we're going to look at that in Psalm 42 and 43 because most people who study the 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:27.039 Old Testament and commentators on the Psalms will agree that Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 are very 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:33.599 probably just one Psalm. If you'll notice in your Bibles that Psalm 42 and the one before it and 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:40.000 several ones before it and the ones after it, apart from 43, they all have a title, but actually 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:47.840 Psalm 43 doesn't have a title. And of course, there's a chorus that we read at the very beginning 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:53.599 of the service, verse 5, why are you cast down on my soul and so on. And that's repeated in verse 11, 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:59.599 why are you cast down on my soul. And then it's repeated at the end of Psalm 43, why are you cast 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:05.599 down on my soul. So these and the themes that come together would suggest that they were originally 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:10.959 just one Psalm and we're taking it as one Psalm. Probably written by David, although it doesn't 00:04:10.959 --> 00:04:17.680 say that's the case, but the music for it was certainly done by the sons of Korah and given 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:25.120 to the choir master to be sung by God's people. Now, we don't, again, we don't even know the 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:33.280 circumstances of the Psalm. It may have been, if David did write it, that when he was dethroned, 00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:38.480 as it were, when Absalom, his son, his beloved son, took over the throne and rebelled against him, 00:04:39.280 --> 00:04:43.439 and he had to run away for his life and was hiding in the hills away from Jerusalem. 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:52.399 That may have been the context, but this is God's living word also for us. And the context isn't 00:04:52.399 --> 00:05:00.639 clear, which is helpful to remind us that it is a context for all times. Things are not as they 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:08.399 should be. Life, in the first place then, can we look at life being catastrophic for the believer. 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:13.919 Life can be catastrophic for you and for me as Christians. Take David, if it's David who's the 00:05:13.919 --> 00:05:25.759 writer here of the Psalm. It's a litany of suffering and misery. It's overwhelming. It's not good, 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:32.399 really, and it makes depressing reading, in many ways. There is a spiritual longing for him in the 00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:38.799 early verses, one and two, you know, as the deer pants for flowing streams. So my soul longs for 00:05:38.799 --> 00:05:46.959 you, oh God, my soul thirsts for God. There is spiritual longing. There's painful memories as 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:52.479 he thinks about the throne in verse 4 that used to go with leading the procession to the house of 00:05:52.479 --> 00:05:58.639 God, the celebrations, the joy, the festival, the company, the fellowship, both with God and with 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:03.360 people. And he's longing for that, longing for the palace, for the temple, for the prophets, 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:12.159 for the festivals, for the presence of God, and it's not there. He's someone whose tears have never 00:06:12.159 --> 00:06:19.839 been far from him. In verse 3, we have, my tears being food day and night. He experiences the ridicule 00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:26.879 from others while all day long they say, where is your God? You know, this is David who's the 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:33.439 man after God's own heart, who represented God and spoke in many ways on God's behalf and defended 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:39.920 God's honor, and here people are saying, well, where is your God now? What kind of God do you have? 00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:48.480 There's despair and there's anxiety in his life in the refrain and the chorus, you know. 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:55.279 You're cast down, there's turmoil, there's despair in his life. It's repeated three times 00:06:55.279 --> 00:07:04.239 between the two Psalms as we have them. Pit of his stomach emptiness and dis-peace and anxiety, 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:12.879 so much so that he feels, in verse 7, for example, that he is drowning. 00:07:13.599 --> 00:07:21.759 And Jews had great fear, as we've seen before, of the sea and of water in many ways. And he felt 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:31.360 that danger, the chaos of being out of control, of drowning darkness. Terrible for him, the king 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:40.079 of Israel, to feel these ways. Isolated and abandoned by God, as he speaks of in the next 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:51.919 Psalm 43, vindicate me. Why, you I take refuge, why have you rejected me? Why am I oppressed? 00:07:52.719 --> 00:08:00.240 He's surrounded by enemies, he feels rejected by God, tremendous, tremendous depression 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:05.279 and discontent in his own life. 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:14.719 And maybe for the first time in a long while, as you've listened to sermons or 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:29.119 I've joined us today, you can say for the first time, amen, amen. I know exactly what that is like. 00:08:30.479 --> 00:08:35.120 And maybe, maybe particularly in these days when we can't join together and we miss church 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:40.080 and fellowship and everything, you're longing for that again. You're longing for the fellowship, 00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:47.200 you're longing for what you once experienced of God's presence in your life. Maybe you feel 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:53.759 your life just simply isn't going down the road that you hoped it to go down. Broken dreams, 00:08:53.759 --> 00:09:00.080 tears are never far from you. Maybe, can I just speak for a moment to the men, maybe as a man, 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:07.680 you're struggling with anxiety and tears, and you feel, well, that's not a manly thing to be doing, 00:09:07.680 --> 00:09:14.879 to be feeling this despair, this overwhelmed sense of being out of control, and you're struggling 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:22.639 with these emotions, maybe particularly at this time. You have no answers. Maybe it's 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:30.480 trouble and difficulties and struggles at work or at home at this time, or it might be financial 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:36.639 or relational. You feel isolated and abandoned by God. Where's the blessings? What's the point 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:44.879 of believing? Where are the benefits? Battling. What do we do in these times? And we all face 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:50.960 these times as believers in greater or lesser degree. We all ask the question, where is God in 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:57.519 these things and during these times? Now, I know there'll be other factors that we ask about when 00:09:57.519 --> 00:10:03.360 we are struggling and we're discouraged and depressed and downcast. It might not all be 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:10.480 questions about faith and God that we're asking, but if we are Christians, we will ask that. And 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:14.160 if you're not a Christian this morning, maybe you'll be looking at Christians and saying, well, 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:21.519 where is your God? And what is the point of your belief? What's all about? So the question, the 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:26.879 second thing that I want to say is really related, if the first thing was life can be catastrophic. 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:32.559 The second is, where do we go with our despair? Where do we go with our discouragement and our 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:39.839 depression and our feeling of being overwhelmed and drowning? Because, you know, as Christians 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:49.759 or anybody, in fact, we go somewhere with them, don't we? We journey somewhere with our despair. 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:57.280 What do we do with that? With our suffering and our struggles. Where do we go? Where do we turn? 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:06.320 To put it just in maybe everyday parlance, what do you do when your life as a Christian just sucks 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:17.360 and is miserable? When you think all the talk of his love and his care and his concern is 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:25.040 vacuous and empty platitudes. Well, can I ask you briefly to consider four things from 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:33.280 this Psalm? And they're brilliant. I hope you'll find them helpful. And the first, obviously, 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:42.079 that I would say is name it. Name your despair before the living God. You know, verses 8 and 9 00:11:42.079 --> 00:11:47.519 are great verses there in Psalm 42. By the day the Lord commands his steadfast love at night, 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:53.360 his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life, I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? 00:11:53.360 --> 00:12:03.519 And that kind of, in a sense, is the hub of the whole Psalm. See, God knows. This is his living 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:11.120 word. He's legitimized these complaints and these despairing cries, and he wants them. 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:18.000 He wants us to bring them to him. It's that whole thing about turning to God again, isn't it? 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:24.879 He recognizes and he wants us to know that he knows it's a battle. We have, as Christians, the 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:30.320 greatest relationship known to humanity, and he wants us to plug into that at a time like this, 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:35.759 the source of life and the hope for life. And he said, don't hold anything back. 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:43.919 But make these requests and cry out to the living God. Now, just can I ask you just for a moment, 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:49.279 if you scan back in your life, as I must do, or scan back in the last, say, month of your life, 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:53.439 what have our prayers been like? What have your prayers been like? 00:12:55.039 --> 00:13:01.759 Have they been nice, well-molded and structured sentences, nice phrases, 00:13:02.319 --> 00:13:10.959 snatched requests during the day? Well, at all the time we're avoiding the elephant in the room. 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:18.240 We're avoiding the deep-seated spiritual battle that we're facing, the complaints and the struggles 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:23.759 against God, the lack of understanding. But we don't talk to Him about that. We don't mention it. 00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:32.000 We just say nice things and we make nice requests to Him. But He says, Luke, tell me, tell me everything 00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:39.600 that's in your heart and soul. Because I'm asking, I'm asking, I'm a derrick, I'm asking you today 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:44.639 as I ask myself, who is your counselor? Who is it that you speak to about these things? Who is your 00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:52.399 spiritual ombudsman? To whom do you go with your spiritual complaints procedure? Do you go to 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:59.440 everyone but the boss? Do you think God can't hear it or won't be able to take it? Do you think He'll 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:08.480 turn away and say, oh, I failed that and I don't know what to do? That's where He wants us. He wants 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:15.759 He wants us to take it all to Him. And I, oh, if you're not a believer this morning, it's brilliant 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:19.759 that you're listening and it's brilliant that you're here and that you're taking the time to tune in. 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:27.120 And I would love just to ask you, where is it that you take your despair? Where is it you can go 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:35.360 with to your despair? And to these metaphysical and philosophical and spiritual and emotional 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:40.000 questions, where do you go with them? I love the cartoons. I've used this illustration before, 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.759 but it's a long time, so I can use it again. You had Tom and Jerry or something like that. 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:54.000 Just, I love them. And sometimes, you know, maybe Tom would see a stick of dynamite and it would be 00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:00.879 lit and he would just look at that and he would swallow it and the stomach would just explode 00:15:00.879 --> 00:15:07.039 internally as he swallowed the dynamite for whatever reason. And then he would carry on running about. 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:13.759 Now, that's a cartoon, but that's not like real life. If we internalize everything and if we swallow 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:22.320 all our despairing thoughts and just compress them or suppress them or try and deal with them 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:30.640 internally ourselves, then our insides, our very thought process, our life just gets messed up and 00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:37.680 broken. But we're asked to take them in relationship outside of ourselves to the King of Kings and 00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:43.600 the Lord of Lords. Name it before God. It's the first thing. The second thing is remember as a 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:51.040 believer, remember past joys. Verse 4, then these things I remember as I poured out my soul, how I 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:57.360 would go out with a throng and lead them in procession to the house of God. Remember these 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:04.319 Christian experiences. We often forget them. It's the curse of forgetfulness in our lives. 00:16:04.319 --> 00:16:13.599 Remember again in verse 6 that refrain, he talks about praising God, my salvation and my God. 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:22.399 Remember that it's in relationship we are. Remember these days. Remember good times spiritually 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:30.000 and strong times. And again, I asked the question, have you got that reality to fall back on? To 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:36.720 remember, which is such an important part of our Christian lives to be those who remember. 00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:41.759 So name it before God. Remember past joy. And for me, this is the most important thing because 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:48.559 it's the thing that we deal least with in our understanding of God and of Scripture. Recognize 00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:56.960 paradox in our lives. Recognize the reality of paradox in our lives. 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.840 Can I just explain what I mean in this Psalm? And it's very important. 00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:10.640 Look at the paradox of verse 9, for example, I say to God, my rock, good strong words of faith, 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:20.880 why have you forgotten me? Because his knowledge and his experience seem so different. Or verse 2 00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:31.840 of Psalm 43, for you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Do you see the 00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:39.280 paradox? Do you see the tension in these verses where there's faith known and understood but 00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:44.399 the experience, the emotion, the feeling of that isn't there. There's great paradox. 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:55.119 Then you've got verse 3 where he says, my tears have been my food day and night. 00:17:55.119 --> 00:18:10.079 And then we also have this recognition of God that day and night he is with him, 00:18:11.919 --> 00:18:24.879 and we recognize the difference between the two. Sorry, it's verse 3 where he feels tears has been 00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:31.280 his meat. And then verse 8 where he says, the Lord commands his steadfast love by day, 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:38.720 and then at night his song is with me. So there's this tears day and night, but there's also this 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:45.760 recognition that the Lord commands his love and his song is with him day and night. It's paradoxical 00:18:45.760 --> 00:18:52.400 truth, the reality of what we know and what we believe and what we trust. And sometimes what we 00:18:52.400 --> 00:19:02.640 feel is very, very different. We can't be putting God in a box. It is not all meat and tidy. This 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:11.600 is a battle. And so we have also this amazing contradiction, as it were, between God being 00:19:11.600 --> 00:19:17.920 the living waters. In verse 1, my, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:27.600 oh God, my soul thirsts for God, the living God. And many people would link that with the idea of 00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:34.960 living water, the Old Testament picture of God being living water and the Sammest longing for 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:41.600 these flowing streams. And at the same time in verse 7, he feels he's drowning, deep calls to 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:48.000 deep at the roar of your waterfalls, as if God is the living water, is drowning him with the 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:55.039 experiences he's having. And so there's paradox. There's confusing, confusing and conflicting 00:19:55.039 --> 00:20:02.639 experiences. And as believers, we need to come in terms with that, that our felt experience, 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:13.920 our emotions, what we sense is often different from what we also believe and what, where our hope 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:24.960 lies and where our foundation is and where our relationship with God is genuine. That's the 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:32.160 paradox of battle and of living in the already of truth and the yet and not yet of perfection in 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:41.200 the future. And so I ask each of us to consider that paradox and also again, if you're not a 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:52.240 Christian, do you see that paradox and then just dismiss faith as being paradoxical and a waste of 00:20:52.240 --> 00:21:02.079 time without considering the alternative you've chosen? That's the third thing, recognize the 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:09.599 paradox. The last thing that I want to mention is if we've, if we're naming it before God in prayer, 00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:14.640 if we're remembering past joy, not just in our own experience, but I think through his word as well, 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:21.839 I didn't really mention that. And as we recognize the paradox, then it's also important. And I've 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:29.039 said this before as well, speak to yourself. I don't believe that's the first sign of madness, 00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:35.439 speaking to yourself, because the psalmist here, particularly in the refrain and the chorus, 00:21:35.439 --> 00:21:44.079 he's speaking to himself. Why, speaking to his soul is inner being, his very core. Why are you cast 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:50.879 down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me, hoping God for I shall praise him, my salvation 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:57.680 and my God? So there's this intentional and deliberate and conscious speaking to himself. 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:03.520 It's as if I was saying, if I would hold on a minute, Derek, listen to yourself. 00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:12.720 Here, it's kind of shaking yourself in a very conscious and very intentional, deliberate way. 00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:21.440 And he's asking, God encourages us to ask ourselves to question the certainty of your despair. 00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:29.279 Isn't that good? To question how certain is your despair and what is it based? 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:37.200 And compare it with what is absolute and what is unchanging in your life and your future and 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:44.080 the person of God. Are circumstances and experiences, are they going to pass? Yes, they are. Is this 00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:48.559 pandemic going to pass? Yes, it is. Is this isolation going to end? Of course it will, 00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:56.240 because life is short and it is full of change and variety. But question if that is why you're 00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:03.840 despairing, and if it is, then rekindle your relationship with the eternal living God and 00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:09.359 question the certainty of your despair. And maybe if you're not a Christian this morning, 00:23:10.159 --> 00:23:18.959 maybe question the certainty of your unbelief. Question yourself, is my unbelief rational? 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:27.759 Is it wise? Does it give me the answers to life and meaning that the gospel and Jesus Christ 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:36.400 do? To question the certainty of your despair and also rekindle the reality of your hope. 00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:41.440 And particularly, not just in the refrain, but maybe in the very well-known word that 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:47.599 lasts towards the end of Psalm 43, send out your light and your truth. Let them guide me, 00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:52.480 let me, let them bring me to your holy hill to the dwelling. Then will I go to the altar of God, 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:59.360 to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with a liar. Oh God, my God. Speak to yourself, 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:06.079 question the certainty of your despair, and rekindle the reality of hope, particularly for us 00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:12.000 as we have the benefit of the completed Bible and the person and work of Jesus Christ. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:27.200 Rekindle a sense of expectation based on the truth. My Savior, my salvation, my God, 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:40.000 take a journey back to the future and cry out for God's light and truth in your heart and in your 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:49.759 soul. You see, send out your light, He prays, and your truth. You see, the focus changes, doesn't it? 00:24:50.319 --> 00:25:01.359 So often, we look at life with our light, with the limited light we have, and the limited knowledge 00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:07.680 of truth that we have, and it just seems pear-shaped and catastrophic. And He says, Lord, please show 00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:15.279 me your light and your truth. See, the difference between a struck match in the darkness, which is 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:19.920 our light, can only light for a very short time before it's extinguished, and it doesn't light 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:30.400 very much. And the light of the sun, which is lighting up our whole world, and that's the light 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:36.640 of God that we look for in our lives, in our life, and in our experience, and we pray for that. 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:44.400 And we take a walk at the same time. We take a walk to His holy hill, to the altar of God, 00:25:44.400 --> 00:26:00.080 to His dwelling, which we find His hill is Calvary, ultimately, His place of presence, 00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:09.519 and the altar that's on that hill is the cross. That's where we find unbridled joy and delight, 00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:16.639 because it's there we see the meaning and the center of our lives, and the hope, the hope, 00:26:16.639 --> 00:26:23.159 that He brings us, the hope that He has dealt with our sin, with our death, that He will take 00:26:23.159 --> 00:26:28.679 our suffering, and as we cry out to Him, He will give us shalom and peace, and give us direction 00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:35.080 through it, and He will guide us. He will hold our hands. He will not abandon us, even when our 00:26:35.080 --> 00:26:42.920 experiences feel that that's not the case. And we sense a paradox. He wants us to remind ourselves 00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:50.279 that His light and His truth is with us, and that we will experience joy and pleasure in His 00:26:50.279 --> 00:27:00.119 closer presence in this life, but also in the life to come. We simply can't move far from here. 00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:09.799 We can't move far from the cross. It's the one place where the dark night of our soul can begin 00:27:09.799 --> 00:27:18.440 to be dispelled. We're loved and healed beyond comprehension, even when it doesn't feel like 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:25.360 that. That's why the Lord's Supper is so important to us as Christians, the sacrament that God has 00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:31.480 given us, because it reminds us of His love revealed as we saw a few weeks ago in a way 00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:41.279 that nothing else can, and nothing else ever would. Where is your hope? Again, if you've managed to hang 00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:48.480 in there as an unbeliever through this sermon, where does your hope lie? Is it in yourself? Is it in 00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:56.399 your just living the best kind of life you can, which is noble, but despairing in many ways, 00:27:56.399 --> 00:28:06.319 because we all die? Is it in politics or in justice of some, where does that come from? Where is 00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:14.319 that justice in? Where is that morality? Please consider where your hope lies. So these four things, 00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:23.279 I think enable us and help us to deal, begin spiritually to deal with despair. We sometimes 00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:32.960 may need medical intervention, and in many ways we will need God to work in multifaceted ways, 00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:42.360 but from a relational point of view with Him, name it before God, remember past joys, recognize the 00:28:42.360 --> 00:28:54.440 paradox and speak to yourself. And in conclusion, this is a song, and there is expectation of singing 00:28:54.440 --> 00:29:02.799 this song by David together, and the Psalms are God's songs for God's people, and the sons of 00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:08.200 Kora set them to music. They were there to be sung. They were there to be sung together, and I 00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:15.120 think there's great healing in singing praise to God together. It's one of the things I greatly miss 00:29:15.120 --> 00:29:20.240 is coming together and singing praises. There's lots I miss just now. I'm missing all of you just 00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:27.120 now, and I do just encourage you, because I miss you so much. You know, get in touch. If you want to 00:29:27.120 --> 00:29:33.920 go for a walk, let's get in touch and go for a walk and have some chat together in Christ, and 00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:42.319 encourage and build one another up by long for these things. But I do think we value singing and 00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:49.120 praise too little together. Maybe we value it more now since it's been taken from us, but it's 00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:56.799 soul music. It's full of medicine, and it's to be sung together. And we learn these deep truths 00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:04.479 together as we sing. Just the Psalms, but the truth of Scripture. Let's not relegate or trivialize 00:30:04.479 --> 00:30:14.599 or devalue song. It's an incredible ability to give us expectant hope and truth as we sing it 00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:21.359 together. A future of joined alike, we will praise Him in the new creation. And I just want to finish 00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:27.679 with the words of a song. I hope we'll do this song sometime soon. It's one of City of Lights song 00:30:27.679 --> 00:30:35.879 called What Love My God. What love my God so gracious and extreme was strong enough to come 00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:44.440 and fight for me, to go through hell and down into the grave and raise me up to see you face to face. 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:53.280 Oh, Your love my God like a flood as heaven opened up pouring out on us. Oh, praise the King who 00:30:53.280 --> 00:31:02.800 came to the world in His love like a mighty flood. Let's pray. Father God, we ask and pray for Your 00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:13.639 help. We thank You that You understand that we are frail and often weak and compromised and battling 00:31:13.639 --> 00:31:24.279 with paradox. The joyful times don't seem to last often and yet often because we turn our backs to 00:31:24.279 --> 00:31:31.399 You. Help us through dark times and to see Your light and Your truth. And made this message, 00:31:31.400 --> 00:31:41.800 this Psalm, be powerfully used in the lives of many today who listen. And may You speak powerfully 00:31:41.800 --> 00:31:47.960 through that living word to them. We pray for hope in our lives in this despairing and rather 00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:57.360 hopeless time. And we pray that You would bless the young people, especially the students who are 00:31:57.359 --> 00:32:07.519 seeking to online do various events this next week to bring hope and expectation into their 00:32:07.519 --> 00:32:15.279 own lives as believers and also to those who are not Christians. We pray for many people to come to 00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:27.079 Jesus Christ in hope, in rescue, in salvation, that they can say, God, my salvation and my God. Amen.