Hope in Despair
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· 294 viewsTheme: Hope in God gets us through despair. Purpose: That we remind ourselves to Hope. Gospel: See Jesus praying this prayer in Garden and Cross, and the Hope of Resurrection. Mission: Grow in Expectancy
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As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Introduction:
1. Turn off all the lights and having complete silence for 15-20 seconds. Then read the following poem which was found carved into a wall in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust by an unknown Jewish prisoner: “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even though I don’t feel it. I believe in God, even when he is silent” (Matthew Day, et al., “Survivors Remember Auschwitz,” January 27, 2015, The Telegraph, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/11372941/Survivors-remember-Auschwitz-Every-time-I-come-here-I-feel-fearful.html>)).
Have you ever experienced a time when you felt abandoned by God? Maybe you have not felt abandoned, but God seemed distant, non-responsive, not present.
18 -When We Feel Abandoned by God...
18 -When We Feel Abandoned by God...
When God seems far away or silent, we might be experiencing a “dark night of the soul.” R. C. Sproul describes it as a spiritual depression, a kind of depression that is “linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of God or gives rise to a feeling of abandonment by Him” (“The Dark Night of the Soul,” February 1, 2008, Tabletalk Magazine, Ligonier, <http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/dark-night-soul/?utm_source=GOOGLE&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Dynamic Search Ads | National1.>). Many faithful Christians experience these dark nights of the soul.
The Sons of Korah - Temple Priests in Charge of Worship (One of the clans of levites to do this) and the Janitorial Duties of the Temple. - Not in charge of the Sacrifices - They are like the Praise Team, and Berv and Margie.
Probably written during the Exile - So the Temple has been destroyed.
Temple - Where God’s Presence was on Earth
The Sons of Korah - God abandoned them in these ways.
They lost their purpose, their role in life, ie their calling.
They were stripped away from the presence of God.
It seemed like their enemies had the upper hand - Oppression and Torture and evil by the Babylonians
Perhaps many of their family members had been killed.
It did not seem like God was doing anything about it, in fact God was allowing it to happen.
Perhaps you, or you know of others who lost one of these or have gone through a major loss in life.
List of Losses in Pastor’s Bible.
When We feel loss like this...
19 -We Might Feel Despair.
19 -We Might Feel Despair.
Imagry - Tears - Downcast, disturbed, Forgotten, mourning, oppressed, mortal agony, and taunted.
Have you felt any of these in your life?
Two Responses: Co-worker who gave birth to a still-born child. - She turned to God who got her through, her husband felt abandoned by God, stopped talking to God, and eventually became bitter towards God.
1. Part of surviving a difficult season is being real about how we are. We should be honest with God, with ourselves, and with others about the condition of our hearts. Verses 3, 5, and 6 describe the author of this psalm’s emotional distress. He even describes his prayers when he lays it all before the Lord in raw honesty (vv. 9–10).
Both a prayer, and an inner wrestling - Addressed to God, and to the Psalmists Soul.
We are called to Lament - %40 of the Psalms are Laments like this, It is the largest genre in the Psalms, 59 compared to the next highest “Praise” being 41. David the biggest lamenter in the Psalms - 58% of His Psalms.
David a man after God’s own heart.
Jesus as the suffering servant is the primary prayer of the Psalms - Put Psalms in Jesus’ words.
Conclusion - Christians are called to Lament, and perhaps when we live like Jesus in this world of brokenness we should be characterized more by being honest about our despair.
Do we give voice to this in our time together? In our worship together?
Juno - Balancing Grief and Gratitude
How do we move get to gratitude?
20 -Hope in God Gets Us Through Despair.
20 -Hope in God Gets Us Through Despair.
In verse three, the psalmist’s enemies taunt him when they ask, “Where is your God?” Our enemy Satan will ask us this in dark seasons, too. But we cannot give in to the temptation to believe God has abandoned us. Instead, like the psalmist modeled, we must declare to ourselves and even to our oppressors that our hope is still in God and in his love (vv. 5, 8).
Alaskan winters are difficult. Not just because of the 40-degrees-below-zero temperatures and the many months of deep snow but because of the darkness. There are some parts of Alaska where during the winter solstice there is no sunlight for weeks at a time. To combat the seasonal depression often linked to these periods of darkness, natives know they need to (1) create artificial light boxes to simulate sunshine, (2) surround themselves regularly with friends, and (3) remind themselves that winter is a temporary season. The sun will rise again: (“How to Survive an Alaskan Winter,” Royal Alaskan Movers (blog), accessed August 23, 2017, http://royalalaskanmovers.com/how-to-survive-an-alaskan-winter/).
It is a battle and it is not easy, we should not pretend it is easy.
Question: Why are you downcast....Put your hope in God...
We may not feel like praying…My encouragement is to do it anyway. Keep the lines of communication Going. Let God know you are thirsty, panting, etc...
We need to remind ourselves that God is faithful and that our feelings aren’t the basis for the truth. God’s Word is. Feelings come and go, but God’s character and his Word last forever.
vs7 - The abundance of the waterfalls where the Jordan comes down from by Mt. Hermon.
vs8 - Remembering his love - sometimes we need to sing our way through the despair. - Singing the blues when I was in high school.
Question: Why are you downcast....Put your hope in God...
Conclusion:
Be Honest with God - Keep the lines of communication going - Theme for this series.
One thing to focus on is our HOPE - Expectation that God will make all right.