Good morning.
Oh, that's terrible.
Good morning.
Oh, so much better.
So much better.
Good.
Welcome to Watermark.
If you don't know me, my name's Chris.
I help oversee some of the community groups here.
And we're kind of going through a series over the summer,
looking at the Psalms.
I feel like I've got a bit of echo going on here.
Can we work on that?
Thank you.
And the Psalms have been the favorite book of many Christians over the centuries
because they're really, most of the Bible is about God speaking to us.
The Psalms are us speaking back to God.
They're basically the prayer book of the Bible.
It's like, how do you, in the seasons of life, in the course of life,
whatever's going on in your life, how do you relate to God in the seasons?
And that's what Psalms is going on about.
Whether you feel like your life is like a calm, serene lake,
or you feel like the waves are crashing down on you right at the moment,
the Psalms are going to teach you how to live well with God in all the seasons.
And last week we talked about happiness.
And we talked about how one of the defining characteristics of Christians
is that we have a deep-rooted happiness that we find in God.
The early Christian writer Augustine said this.
He said,
So we were looking at happiness last week.
This week, we're going to look at something which may sound as if it's completely the opposite
of everything we said, but it's not.
We're looking at spiritual drought.
Okay?
Spiritual drought.
By which I mean anything from discouragement to full-blown depression.
Okay?
Full range there.
And you may be thinking,
that sounds like a very happy topic for summer.
And it is.
But if you read through the Psalms,
a third of the Psalms are what we call lament.
And lament means kind of complaining, misery.
It's life is tough.
And I don't know if you've ever read through the Psalms at all,
but I've read it when I'm feeling happy.
And when you're feeling happy,
you come to like a passage like today.
And you know what?
It just feels like a bit of a downer.
Okay?
You're happy.
You're feeling great.
And then you're reading about a depressed guy.
It's not the kind of thing you want to do.
So you kind of flick on to kind of some happy Psalm,
like Psalm 23.
And everything is fine because the Lord's your shepherd.
But that is not the way we should be praying and reading the Psalms.
Because the Psalm isn't just for you if you're feeling dry or down.
It's also this Psalm is for you if you're feeling happy today.
Because it's going to tell you a couple of things.
One is it's going to tell you sometime in your life,
you will experience what this guy in the Psalm,
and we'll talk about, experiences.
So you need to be prepared for it.
The World Health Organization says by 2020,
depression will be the second most significant health problem in the whole world.
Just behind heart disease.
Hong Kong, you just look at the suicide rate.
You look at the fact that statistics show 25% of the workforce
are said to be experiencing depressive symptoms.
And you can see that this issue is everywhere.
So that's the first thing you need to realize.
That this is sometime in your life,
you're going to experience discouragement and spiritual drought.
Secondly, you're going to know that your prayer life
doesn't just revolve around you and your feelings.
The Psalms are meant to be prayed.
I don't know if you realize.
They're even meant to be sung.
Okay?
But if you start praying this Psalm for people in the congregation
who are going through this same thing,
what it does,
it will open your eyes to see with greater compassion,
greater empathy,
the people around you.
And you won't judge people who are going through a tough time
and look at them and say,
why is she so miserable?
But you will have an empathy and a compassion
and to be able to see them as you enter into the Psalms,
that's what it's meant to be doing for you.
And this city needs a church
which knows how to walk alongside people
through the drought as well as through the good times
so that we're rooted as we looked at last week
and our leaves do not wither.
So we're going to look at spiritual drought.
We're going to look at three things.
Spiritual drought is normal.
What causes the drought?
And what's the remedy?
What's the cure for the drought?
Okay?
Spiritual drought is normal.
What causes it?
What's the remedy?
So if you've got your bulletin,
just kind of have a look through the passage with me.
Psalm 42 verse 1 says,
As the deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
And the psalmist begins with this image of a deer
on a long, hot summer day
where there's been no rain for weeks.
And it's like one of those wildlife documentaries, you know,
and the deer is there gasping for water,
dying in the heat.
And he goes down to a stream
where he thinks there's going to be water.
He just wants a drop.
And the stream's dried up.
There's nothing there.
It's empty.
And that's what the psalmist is saying
he feels like right now.
He says,
I'm that deer.
I'm thirsty for God.
And I'm not chasing after
all the kind of bad stuff in the world.
I'm not chasing after just life for my comfort.
I'm thirsty for God.
And I've come down to the stream of living water
who is God himself.
And it feels like, God, you've dried up.
Evaporated.
You've gone.
And I'm left spiritually dry,
fainting in the heat of my circumstances.
And he cries out later on in verse 3.
He says,
When shall I come and appear before God?
Literally, it's when shall I come and see the face of God?
He can't feel God's presence.
He feels like bouncers are on the door of heaven
and they're not letting him in.
And the crazy thing about this psalm
is that the psalmist hasn't done anything wrong.
You know, there are plenty of places in the psalms
where the psalmist feels cut off from God
and it's because of his own fault.
It's because of his own sin.
But that's not the case here.
There's no confession of sin.
He's not done anything wrong.
And like a dazed deer,
this psalmist just doesn't get what's going on.
He's lost, he's confused, he's depressed.
It feels like God's gone missing.
And here's something we,
just a really important lesson for us to learn.
Our society encourages us to judge our life
and judge everything based on your feelings, right?
You know, this relationship,
it just feels right.
We even say like we judge what's true or not
based on whether it feels good to me or not, okay?
I join certain organizations.
I enter relationships.
I do what I think feels right for me.
But what many Christians,
and many of you are going to struggle
with what I'm going to say now,
which is spiritual drought,
where God's presence seems absent at times,
is a normal Christian experience.
It's normal, okay?
Many, if you're a new Christian or a young Christian,
and you go through this period
where sometimes it feels like God's gone AWOL,
your joy is gone,
your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling,
you may begin to think there's something wrong with you.
I see this all the time.
Maybe I haven't read my Bible recently enough.
Maybe I need to pray more.
Maybe God's punishing me for something I did wrong.
You know?
All those kind of things go around in our mind.
And everyone else around you seems happy enough,
and you feel like you're the only one who's got a problem.
I don't know if you've been there.
I've been there.
And you know, I see when you're in that place,
you can sometimes wonder,
is your faith really real or not?
And particularly if you just heard a sermon
about how Christians are supposed to be happy,
and you feel like about as far away from that
as Britain is from Europe at the moment.
But I think if we have that approach
where we base my relationship on God
determined by how my present feelings are,
I think this is what I would call
coffee machine Christianity.
You know, I press this button, read Bible,
and out of it I expect to flow feelings of joy and love.
You know, I press regular church attendance,
and I expect a flow of kind of life's blessings
to come down upon me.
But what happens when you press the Bible button,
and all you seem to get is lukewarm, tasteless feelings,
or sometimes you get nothing?
You think, either I'm pressing the wrong button,
or there's a problem with the coffee machine,
God in this case.
And like Job in the Bible,
who's another guy, if you've read the story of Job,
another guy who feels like God is absent,
his friends assumed,
because he was having a hard time,
distance from God,
they assumed it was because of his sin.
Now, sin can distance you from God.
We've said that already.
You've got to examine yourself first.
But for Job, as for this psalmist,
that's not the issue.
It's not his sin.
John Piper says,
My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives.
And sometimes, many times,
my feelings are out of sync with the truth.
Because, you know, your feelings are variable.
According to your temperament,
some of you get more moody than other people,
the season of life you're in.
And when you start to base your life on your feelings,
and you start getting into that,
what am I doing wrong phase,
and trying to find some kind of quick fix
to get your feelings back,
your faith will become totally self-focused,
feeling-based,
not based on the truth of God's character.
And no relationship works like that.
You know, feelings will come.
But in a marriage,
you don't always have the feelings.
But God wants to have a real relationship with you,
which is not based on a coffee machine relationship.
You know, I'll scratch your back, God,
by pressing the right buttons.
If you scratch mine and give me some nice feelings.
That's not the way God works.
And this psalm is telling you,
spiritual drowl, sooner or later,
is going to come to you.
It's normal if you're a Christian.
And if your only concern,
if your only concern is just to get your feelings back,
then you may miss some of what God
is actually wanting to do in your life,
rooting you in a deeper relationship with Him.
Spiritual drought is normal.
Secondly, what causes a spiritual drought?
Well, this psalm gives three reasons.
Okay?
The first reason.
Psalms shows us that the author here,
he's not alone.
Sorry, he is alone.
And he's outside of community.
Now, we don't know exactly
why the author is away from his community.
But he's one of the sons of Korah
who are kind of basically temple worship leaders.
Okay?
In Jerusalem.
And if you look in verse 4,
he says his experience of being in Jerusalem
is of this amazing community.
Okay?
It's an amazing community
where people sing God's praises.
They're there.
They hear God's word being read together.
They celebrate together.
It's this amazing God-centered community.
It's a bit like us as the church here.
Okay?
But now he's away from it.
He's away from Jerusalem.
Reading verse 6, it said,
he's in the land of Jordan.
Up in the mountains.
It's over 100 miles away.
We don't know why he's there.
Maybe he's been exiled.
Maybe he just had to move there for some reason.
But he's alone.
He doesn't have people around him
to support him or walk with him.
To help him to fight and regain joy in God.
And this is really interesting.
Because we live in a culture
which values kind of individualism.
You know?
And even in the church,
this can come into our own way
of thinking about the church.
You know, we think,
Christianity is about me
and my relationship with God.
And then maybe occasionally
I come to church on a Sunday,
listen to a sermon,
and then talk to a couple of people
and then head on out
and live the rest of my life my way.
But actually, there's a huge difference.
The Bible keeps telling you
there's a huge difference
between reading the Bible,
prayer, spiritual activity,
which is just by yourself,
and doing those things in community.
They're different experiences.
You need to do the individual
and you need to do
the corporate communal thing together.
You see, if you live
as a lone range Christian,
thinking you can just come in,
listen to a sermon,
run out again,
you will risk
what this psalmist is going through,
which is going to a spiritual desert
by yourself.
Because when you're by yourself,
you don't always know
what's right and what's wrong.
Because you believe
and I believe my own lies about myself.
You know, I went through a period
of spiritual drought
for about four years.
Four years.
I didn't know where God was.
My prayers didn't seem to get answered.
I felt miserable.
I felt lost.
And I felt like a hypocrite
because Christians are supposed
to be happy, aren't they?
And you know when you feel down
and depressed,
one of the last things you want to be
is around other people.
Because you know,
no one wants to be that blob
in the corner.
You know, a bit like,
you know that the power station
on Lama Island
everything else is great
but there's this eyesore
in the middle, right?
You don't want to feel like that.
And so,
and you know,
the only other people
you feel happy around
when you feel down
are actually other depressed people.
And that's not great either.
It's this kind of depression pity party.
You know,
it's not going to help you
in any way at all.
But the very community
that I felt I wanted to avoid
was exactly the community
that I needed
at that time.
You know,
I remember it's one girl
invited me to join
her community group.
I really didn't want to go.
I don't know why I went.
But actually,
it was one of the turning points
for me.
Because
here was a group of people
and actually,
I was this blob in the corner
and they just accepted me.
They weren't always saying,
why are you looking
so miserable, Chris?
They weren't saying,
you need to have more faith, Chris.
Don't be one of those people
who says that
to people who are spiritually dry
because that's just not helpful
when the streams dried up.
But you see,
the power of an accepting
Christian community
is extraordinary
in your life.
And if you run away from it,
if you even now
are going through
a spiritual time of drought,
don't ever withdraw
from community
because it's what you need most
in the drought.
Because you need people
to fight for your joy
with you in that.
Because otherwise,
you'll begin to just base
your happiness
on your feelings
or on your circumstances.
And that will always
get you down.
But let me add one more thing.
In the psalm,
if you notice,
the psalmist in verse 4,
he looks back
and he remembers.
how good his community
used to be.
Listen,
you may be good
right now,
but life was good
for this guy.
You see,
life was happy.
He used to feel
like useful.
He was leading the procession.
He had purpose.
He was in this buzzing community.
But now for this guy,
it's not like this.
He feels like no one cares.
And he remembers
and he looks back
on the good old days
and remembering back
just makes him
even more depressed.
And you know,
in Hong Kong,
things are always changing.
You notice that?
People are always
transitioning in and out.
Have you noticed that?
Some of you
are in the process
of transition.
And you know,
this is one of the
really challenging things,
I think,
that all of us
can find here
is because you're here
for a while.
And if you've been here
for a little while,
you get to know somebody,
you build a relationship
with somebody
and then after a year or two,
what happens is
they move on.
Right?
Have you experienced that?
And maybe the new people
who come are not quite
the same as your old friends.
And actually,
it's really tiring
if you have to
kind of get back
to building a relationship
because you've already
done the hard work
of building a relationship.
You don't want to
keep doing it again.
And maybe you might
even be transitioning
out to a new church
or somewhere else
or a new group
and the music
isn't the same as before.
You know,
the preaching
isn't the same as before.
And it's so easy
to withdraw from community,
to get disillusioned by it
and to just passively
kind of drift away.
And this psalmist
is saying,
don't do it.
You've got to push in
to make new friends,
to make that step
because community
is where we were made
to flourish.
Because if you don't,
find people who
you're accountable to,
people who are going
to run after you,
people who are going
to love you
and support you,
if you don't have that,
you will wilt spiritually.
I can tell you
and guarantee
you will wilt spiritually.
Because it's in these moments
that actually God
wants to deepen
your roots in Him.
So let me ask you,
even wherever season
you're up to now,
whether you're in transition,
whether you're here,
who knows you?
Who are you accountable to?
Who are you running towards?
Don't run away from community,
run into community.
That's what we need.
That's the first cause
of spiritual drought,
being away from community.
Second cause of spiritual drought
is disillusionment
from outside pressure.
This guy,
we don't know exactly
what's going on in his life.
We don't know whether it's sickness,
pressure at work,
other issues,
but his enemies,
have you noticed verse 3,
his enemies are taunting him.
They're saying,
where's your God?
And it's got to him.
You know, verse 9,
he's asking,
why have you forgotten me, God?
People are persecuting him.
Life isn't working out
the way he thought
it should work out.
And just look how
he describes it.
He says,
deep calls to deep
in the roar
of your waterfalls.
All your waves
and breakers
have swept over me.
That is a picture,
he's like saying,
it's like I've been thrown
in the Niagara Falls
and I have water
pounding on me
from the top.
I've got the current
just swirling me around
underneath.
I feel like I've been placed
in a tumble dryer,
put on spin 50 times
and I don't know
which way I'm heading.
I don't know where I am.
I'm lost.
I'm confused.
This isn't the way
life was supposed to be.
God, where are you?
And you know,
when you experience that
and particularly in Hong Kong
that sense of being overwhelmed
by the circumstances
of life,
it's so easy for us
to just,
we just naturally go into
God,
why would you allow
this to happen?
You know,
I know people who,
they become a Christian
and you know,
it's supposed to be great
but the next year
of their life
is the worst year
in the whole of their lives
and they're like,
God,
what's the deal
going on here?
I didn't sign up
for this.
This is not what
it's supposed to be.
Now,
if you didn't have God
and you were going
through that,
I think it would be
a whole lot worse
but that's what
this psalmist is saying
and he's saying
you need to realize
that sometimes
life puts you
in that tumble dryer
and spins you
up and down
but actually,
God is the place
where you need
to run to
not the place
where you need
to run from
because that's
the second cause
of spiritual drought
is that disillusionment
when you feel
like life's not working.
you're out of community,
third thing,
and these are all connected.
Our physical
and emotional condition
affects that feeling
of spiritual drought,
discouragement.
Verse three,
he says,
my tears have been
my food day and night.
He's physically
and emotionally exhausted.
It seems like
maybe he's not been
eating properly.
He's been crying
himself to sleep.
We don't even know
he's getting enough sleep here.
He's crying night and day.
This is a depressed guy.
I mean,
this is not a happy guy.
But the more
I talk to people,
I realize that we live,
particularly in the church,
we live in this culture
which divorces
the spiritual
from the physical.
Okay?
So,
some people think
that if you're feeling
down or depressed
or discouraged
or those kind,
it's just a problem
with the brain.
So they'll say,
oh,
just take some antidepressants
and you'll be fine.
Right?
I don't know if you've heard that.
I had that for myself.
Other people,
I meet many Christians
in this category,
they just think
depression and feeling down
is just this kind of
moral problem.
You know?
You need to pull yourself together.
Just read the Bible.
Have you,
have you,
have you got faith?
And then they say,
don't you know
the rest of us
have got problems
but we're doing okay?
Can't you just stop moaning
and just get on with it?
I reckon probably
some of you have thought that
when you've seen
some miserable people.
I know I have.
Confession.
Because we think
it's just an oral issue.
Others think
it's just an emotional thing.
You just need people
to listen to you.
You need a therapist
just to give you
some kind of you time.
Right?
And so,
so all you need
is just a bit of TLC,
personal therapy.
Just listen to them,
accept them.
That's all they need.
But the Bible says
we're holistic people.
We're physical,
emotional,
spiritual.
We have all of these things
and your physical
and emotional condition
will affect
your spiritual condition.
I don't know
if you heard this,
sometimes I get to the point,
it's confession time,
I get to the point
where I'm just like,
man,
I just don't want
to read the Bible.
And even before a sermon,
I'm like,
oh,
what's the point sometimes?
What's the point
in doing this?
No one's going to listen.
And then even when
I'm preparing,
sometimes I get these thoughts
which come in which say,
maybe I'm making this all up.
Maybe this is just not real.
Maybe I'm just being
a complete idiot.
And then I'm thinking,
Chris,
well,
what's going on?
Like,
am I losing my faith?
Do I have to pray more?
Do I have to read more
of the Bible?
What have I got to do?
And then,
and I'm working the church.
And then,
I have a good meal
or I get some rest,
I get some sleep.
And then afterwards,
I'm suddenly feeling fine.
And I'm like,
what was going on there?
Because,
you know,
when you're overtired
or when you haven't been
eating properly
or sleeping properly
or exercising properly,
you know what?
It actually puts you
in danger of spiritual drought
because you are
a whole being.
You're not just a spirit.
You're not just a body.
You're not just emotions.
You're all of it together.
And the Bible's solution
is not just
pull yourself together.
It's not just
take some medication.
Even though these things
are helpful,
it's not just
listen to it,
have a therapist
to listen to you.
The Bible is saying
it has a holistic solution
for you.
Sometimes you just need
to get some rest,
particularly in Hong Kong.
So those are some
of the causes.
Community,
absence of community.
disillusionment
with outside pressure
and things of life.
The physical
and emotional
strains
that we put on ourselves.
But what's the remedy
for spiritual drought?
What does the Bible give us?
What does this psalmist
teach us
about how
to get through
spiritual drought?
Three things.
Three things
that God teaches us
in this prayer.
Okay, here they are.
Pour out your soul.
Question your soul.
Preach to your soul.
Okay, do you get that?
Pour out your soul.
Question your soul.
Preach to your soul.
Here we go.
Verse four.
These things
I remember
as I
pour
out
my
soul.
Verse nine.
I will say to God,
my rock,
why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go about mourning
because of the oppression
of the enemy?
Do you see what he's doing here?
He's not burying his emotions
like I do so often.
He's not complaining
to everyone else
how bad life is
and avoiding God.
God,
he's doing what Job
does in the Bible
and he runs straight
to God with an honesty
that many of us
might find shocking.
You know,
I meet so many Christians
who tell me,
I'm just so angry
with God
for so and so
and I say to them,
have you told God that?
And they say,
am I allowed to?
And I say,
don't you think
he knows that already?
You know,
it's like when I was at school
there was this kid
who thought that
if he couldn't see you
then you couldn't see him.
And so when we'd play
hide and seek,
he would stand
in the middle of the playground
in full view of everybody
and he'd do this.
He'd cover his eyes
with his hands
and we'd be like,
what's this guy on?
And so we'd kind of go up to him,
find him straight away
and he'd be just like
so surprised
because he thought
if he couldn't see you
then you couldn't see him.
I think that's how
we do that with God.
If I don't tell him
then he doesn't know.
But he can see you
from the inside out.
Every emotion.
So why do you hide?
In fact,
good relationships,
you run to people
with what's going on with you.
And this psalm is telling you
don't bury your emotions,
don't run to everyone else,
run to God.
If you feel he's absent,
tell him.
If you feel like
you're overwhelmed
by what he's brought
into your life,
tell him.
If you're angry with him,
tell him.
He already knows.
It's not a secret.
And he's big enough
to cope with it.
Pour out your soul.
Some of us struggle with that.
And you know,
if you're walking
alongside other people,
and I hope every one of you
will be aware
of the people around you
who are going
through this time.
If you're walking
alongside people
in the spiritual desert,
you've got to allow them
to pour out their hearts.
Listen to them.
Don't jump in
like Job's friends
in the Bible
who just keep thinking
they've got all the solutions,
they just jump in
with a quick fix.
Oh, okay,
here's the ten things
you need to do.
Don't do it.
You need,
you're not the person
to fix them,
right?
You're not a fixer.
God's the fixer.
Listen to them.
Give discouraged people
the chance to speak
or be silent sometimes.
Sometimes if they say
the most outrageous things,
just listen for a while.
Pour out your soul.
Next,
question your soul.
Do you notice what he says?
Why are you cast down,
oh my soul?
Why are you in turmoil,
like a washing machine
of emotions
spinning around within you?
What is he doing?
You know,
it's not that there's
this specific sin
that has got him
to this point,
okay,
when he's depressed,
but when you are depressed,
it's so easy
to put your hope
in anything
to get you out
of the situation.
Medication,
other people's approval,
a new location,
a new job,
anything to make you
feel better.
But what is he doing?
He's,
at this time,
he's asking him
some questions.
He's examining
himself at this point.
Because when you're
in the desert,
there's no better time
to examine,
where am I putting
my hope
for my ultimate happiness in?
Is it something
that can sustain me?
You know,
he's like a doctor
who puts this stethoscope
on his own heart
and he asks himself
these penetrating questions.
Where am I putting
my hope?
Is it in God
at this time?
Or is it in just
trying to get
these feelings back?
You know,
when your community
is not what you
want it to be,
this great gift
of community
that I've said
we need,
but that can even
become an idol
when we think,
if I don't have
everything that I
want it to be,
is that what I've
run to,
to sustain my happiness
more than Christ?
Do you ever
ask yourselves
the questions,
what am I putting
my hope in?
Why am I so
discouraged at the moment?
Where's my
ultimate happiness
right now?
Is it dependent
on God?
And you know,
if you're walking
with somebody else,
you listen to them,
listen to them well,
but there's got to
come a point
where you are
listening for where
are they putting
their hopes in?
Where are they
putting their hopes?
And like that good
doctor,
ask those questions
with grace.
Pour out your soul,
question your soul,
but sooner or later
a doctor just doesn't
listen and ask
questions and say,
bye.
There's got to be a
remedy that you've
got to give.
And so the third
thing is the remedy,
third remedy is
preach to your soul.
What does the
psalmist do?
He says,
verse five,
hope in God
for I shall again
praise him.
Hope in God
for I shall again.
He's talking to
himself.
And I quoted
Martin Lloyd-Jones
last week.
I'm going to quote
him again,
a Welsh preacher.
He said this,
have you realized
that most of your
spiritual unhappiness
is due to the fact
you're listening to
yourself rather than
talking to yourself?
This psalm is showing
you how to preach
to yourself.
Because when you're
dealing with spiritual
drought and
discouragement,
it's easy to think
that there's nothing
you can do about
your emotions and
anything at all.
You just be passive,
allowing it to,
oh, I just feel
terrible.
And you wallow in it
for a while.
But you know,
our feelings and
our emotions,
we don't generate
them actively.
You know,
if a lion walks
into this room
right now,
you don't look
at the lion and
think,
oh, big lion,
big teeth,
looks hungry,
hmm,
I think maybe
I should be afraid.
Okay, let's decide
to be afraid now.
Do you do that?
No, you just
see the lion,
fear wells up
inside of you,
right?
You don't generate
your feelings like
that.
But the thing is,
your emotions
are not your
master.
Your emotions can
be handled by
you.
They're not your
master.
Lloyd-Jones again
says,
the main art in
the matter of
spiritual living is
to know how to
handle yourself.
You know,
some of you have
got more emotions
than others.
Okay, you need to
know how to take
yourself in hand.
You have to address
yourself,
preach to
yourself,
question yourself.
What do you
preach?
You preach the
gospel to yourself.
Here's how the
psalmist says,
my soul is cast
down.
Therefore,
therefore,
I remember
you.
Verse 8,
he says,
what does he
remember?
He remembers
who God is.
He says he
remembers his
faithful love,
seen all through
the Bible.
He reminds
himself of God's
promises,
his love which
goes all through
his faithfulness.
He reminds
himself of what
God has done
in his own
life, his
faithful love
towards him
specifically.
And this music
leader in the
temple writes a
song to God.
He writes it
down.
He recalls God's
goodness.
happiness.
I'm a naturally
optimistic person,
but when I get
discouraged, I can
wallow in my
misery for a
while.
But what I see is
I need to grab my
emotions by the
scruff of the neck
and I need to say,
now, Chris,
listen to me.
God has never
left you.
God is with you
now.
You're his child.
He's working
through this.
You can trust
him.
He loves you.
I need to speak
to myself.
Because if you
fight, your
emotions will
catch up
eventually.
But truth is
true whether you
feel it or not.
You realize that?
Truth is true
whether you feel
it or not.
And it's what you
need to preach
yourself and we
also need to be a
community around
each other who
know how to preach
the gospel to
ourselves.
But you've got to
listen to how it
applies to them
first.
Don't just kind of
charge in there
with like bullet,
gospel bullets kind
of flying left,
right and center.
No, you've got to
listen.
Listen to where they
need hope.
Listen to where they
need to see
encouragement.
Be like a good
doctor who listens
so people can pour
out their soul.
Ask questions of
yourself and others
and then we apply
the truth of who
God is to our own
life and to the
lives of other
people.
And you see what
happens?
There's hope in
this.
The psalmist says,
I shall again
praise him.
It's not past tense.
It's not even
present tense.
It's future tense
knowing that God
will bring him out
of this spiritual
drought.
And you know when
you go through it,
anyone who's been
through it and has
held on to God in
it, you know you
are so much stronger
through it.
You are more
compassionate than
you have ever been
before.
And you can learn a
deeper joy in Christ.
It's not a coffee
machine Christianity
but true deep
relationship in God
because that's where
he's rooting you.
And here in the
Hebrew, this psalmist,
even in this psalm,
is beginning to come
out as he's speaking
to himself.
You don't see it in
your translation but
the Hebrew in verse
five it says,
literally it says,
I shall again praise
him for the salvation
of his face.
It's kind of him
out there.
When you get to
verse 11 and then
43 verse five it
says, for the salvation
of my face.
You see he's coming
out of the pit because
he's realizing God is
not just out there
somewhere.
He's become to be
more personal for me
even as I'm wrestling
through this time.
Do you know how to
preach your soul of
God's love when you're
discouraged, when you're
downcast, when you're
depressed?
Last thing.
If this is the normal
Christian experience,
how do we know that
God loves us when God
is with us when God
feels absent?
How do you know that?
How can we say we
can't base our life off
our feelings?
Well, this psalmist,
he didn't know
something.
He didn't know that
even though he's crying
out for the presence
of God, he didn't
know Christ.
But we do.
Because God himself
came down, Emmanuel,
God with us.
And do you know this
psalmist here?
Jesus was the one who
said, I thirst.
Jesus was the one who
had no sin at all and
yet he had his enemies
mocking and taunting
him saying, where's
your God?
Can't even save you now
when he's on the cross.
He's the one on the
cross who cries out, my
God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?
Jesus was abandoned.
He knew the true absence
of his father so that you
and I will never, ever,
ever have to know that God
is truly absent from us.
That's what Christianity
says.
God is a God who wants to
be with you.
Even when you don't feel
it, he's there.
How do I know?
Because Christ came down
into the darkness, took the
darkness so that you can
know that he is always
there for you.
God is a God who wants to
bring you back into the
presence of his father and
he wants to bring you back
into the presence of a good
God.
Christianity has a God who
can sympathize with our
weaknesses in the seasons of
drought.
Whatever's going on in your
life right now, whether you're
feeling great or feeling
terrible, he is sufficient
for you.
Let's be a community which
knows how to live through
drought and have a leaf which
doesn't wither like we talked
about last week to know that
God is truly our joy because he
will restore us to himself.
Let's pray.
Father, I don't know what's
going on in people's lives
right now.
Some of us may feel like, oh, I
don't need to worry about kind of
spiritual drought at the moment
and yet we're basing all our
hopes and life just on our
feelings and what we feel we
can do by ourselves.
And we have little compassion
for those who are struggling.
Lord, I pray that you make us a
church, which is a church in
this city which is so downcast in
so many ways.
Make us a beacon of light and
hope in this city.
I pray for those of us who are
struggling, who are discouraged,
who are disillusioned, who are
transitioning and are worried about
the next steps.
Lord, I pray that you would help
them to see that you are that
source of joy that they can
cling to, that you're not going to
leave them.
You're not running away, that you're
right there with them and they can
just keep running back to you.
I pray that you would help us to be
a people who know how to love one
another enough to share and speak the
gospel to each other.
Please let us be a community which
doesn't condemn people but really
demonstrates a God who is present and
with us in our lives.
Thank you.
Your name.
Amen.