Learning to Hope

Michael Wear, the expert on the intersection of faith and politics, says this, “The word hope is ubiquitous in our age. It is slogan. It is propaganda. It is comfort… When our little hopes are disappointed, we find ourselves situated between the harshness of despair and the daunting, unusual existence of real hope.”

Hope is a commodity. It is somethign people want and need. When I was training to become a pastor, one of the things that was hammered into me in one of my pastoral care classes was that people need hope. ANd when people lose hope, they become self-destructive. We need hope, it is something that we will do a lot to get a hold of.

Of course, you can’t buy hope. but you can sure sell it. It was after all, the word, “Hope” which became the slogan of the political campaign of President Barack Obama. Yet, as many of his followers, including Michael Wear, admit, there were many times which President Obama failed to live up to this standard. The funny thing about hope, is that once we find a place to put our hope, so often it vanishes and disappears. So as we’re getting started this morning, let me ask, where are you putting your hope? Are you putting your hope in your family? Do you think that if your marriage could just get to this point, or maybe if you could just get your kids to say this, or mabye if your siblings woudl just listen, everything would work? Maybe you are placing your hope in your workpalce. ANd you think, if I could just make this much, or if I could just do this, or if I could get this title, then I will be okay. Maybe your hope is your retirement check. AN dyou think, as long as nobody touches my 401k, as long as nothing happens to my pension, I”ll be okay. Maybe you’re hope is in your political party, and you think, if I could just get my candidate in office or that candidate out of office, everythiung will be okay. Here’s the funny hting about these hopes, they’re not necessarily wrong. But these little hopes will always let us down at some point. They will never ever give us the thigns that we want them to. And very often, when we set our hopes on teh wrong things, and they let us down, our lives just fall into this pit of turmoil, this place where there is no hope.

And it is in this place, this lack of hope that our Psalm situates us today. By this point, we have become familiar with the Psalms of lament. Psalms of lament have four distinct stages. They address God, they complain to God, they request from God, and they trust in God. And is a Psalm of lament. Some people think that is attached to , and there certainly are some parallels, although, I think that there is enough difference to consider them separately. Because is all about how to find hope. So, we might think of in three distinct stages.

First, we see the lack of hope, second we see the journey of hope, and third, we see the source of hope.

The lack of hope

Vindicate me: What we see in the first Psalm is that the Psalmist asks to be “vindicated.” And this word for “vindicate” literally means “judge.” he says, God I want you to judge between me and this person. He is saying, “God, take my side, declare that I am right.” He is saying, “God take my side in this lawsuit." But he does not just want God to be the judge, he also wants God to be the lawyer. He wants God not just to judge his case, he wants him to argue his case. He wants God to take his side and argue his case. And look what he says at the end of vs. 1, he says, “deliver me.” God judge my case, argue my case, but also deliver me. He says, “help me escape.” Bust me out of jail. Look at how the Psalmist feels, he says, “God I need you to save me.” You will notice that if the Psalmist is saying this, then he must feel like the opposite is true. He must feel like God is not judging his case fairly, he must feel like God is not arguing his case in good faith, and he must feel like God is letting him rot in jail.

From the ungodly man: Look at what he says, “Deliver me from teh ungodly man.” Now, so often, we have as we preached through the Old Testament, pointed out this word “hesed.” And the word “Hesed” means God’s steadfast, loyal, faithful, kind, love. It is God in all of his generosity to his people. It really is one of God’s favorite ways to describe himself to his people. Now, look at this word “ungodly here” this is really the Hebrew word which means, “anti-hesed.” Unloving, unhesed. The Psalmist says, “God, deliver me from these people who are so unlike you.” Really, what the Psalmist is saying is that the situation that he is in, and the people that he is dealing with, and the circumstances of his soul are really antithetical to God. He says, “God this place that I am is so unlike who I understand you to be.”

In our lives: Now, some of you are here today, and some of you are in this place. You are living in a situation whree you feel like you are antithetical to God’s ways. You are at work and you feel like the peopel that you work with are so against who you understand God to be. You are dealing with a family member who you love, but who is so opposed to God. You look at those who are in power in our government, and you wonder, “God could there be any who is as far from you as those who seem to make these policies?” Some of you read the Bible and you look at your life and you wonder why the two don’t seem to match up. And you want to cry out with the Psalmist this morning, “God, VINDICATE me!!” And you can relate to the Psalmist in what he says next.

“if you are the God in whom I take refuge”: Now, if you look at this word “for” here, this is a notoriously hard word to translate. In fact, if you want to do a little research, you can look at all the different translations and see how they translate this. But this is the Hebrew word “ky” and it is a hebrew word that you basically use in a lot of different places. It’s kind of like the English word “like”, you use it in a lot of different places. And one of the meanings of this tiny little word is “if”. And I think that word makes the most sense in this verse. I think that means, “If you are the God in whom I take refuge…” In other words, the Psalmist says, “If tyhis is true. God if it is true that I can take refuge in you, which you tell me to do in your word, if you really are a strong tower and a mighty refuge in times of distress....”

Then why? Then why. Why God, why hgave you rejected me? Why6 have you abandoned me? Why do I go about mourning? Why am I oppressed? He says, “God you say that you are on my side, but why in teh world w9ould ytou do this if you were on my side. Why is this world so out of whack with how you say that it should be? Why do the wicked triumph over hte righteous? Why does goodness often receive evil as its reward? Why do your people suffer? God how could you let this happen. I don’t see any way out of this situation.

In our lives: Many of you are in a similar situation in your lives. You see an incongruence between the way things should be and betwen the way things are. You see that, in teh words of the great theologian Cornelius Plantinga, things are not the way they’re supposed to be. And you have no idea how things could improve. ANd if someone asks you what you think the way out is, what do you think the way home is, how you think you can have light and hope again, you simply don’t know. You can’t see a way out of the valley, you can’t see a break in teh clouds, you can’t see the bottom. It’s too murky, too dark, too muddy. You don’t know why God has abandoned you.

Lack of Hope: This is the lack of hope. This is what it means to have no hope. It is to see that the world is totally out of place and that it is totally broken,a nd that you cannot see a way to face this. Often times, the things that we put our faith in, whether they are ap olitical candidate, or a romantic relationship, or a job, or even sometimes a church, they just let us down. They don’t follow through on their promises. They’re just not what we want them to be. That’s life. But the lack of hope comes when we don’t know how to fix it. When we get to this place, where we can’t see a way out, when we come to an end of ourselves, when we don’t know what else to do, friend, the best thing you can do is address God. The best thing you can do is plead with God. It is to talk with him and reach out and say, “God are you listening? God if this is true, why is everything so broken?” ANd it’s not until we’re ready to admit that our hopes have failed us, it’s not until we are ready to admit that the way we are heading does not offer hope, it’s not until we are ready to admit that we are hopeless that we are ready to go on teh journey of hope. And that is where the Psalmist is. He wakes up, he realizes that he is far from GOd, he realizes that he is in a place without light, without truth, and he wants hope.

Why?

The journey of hope

Send out your light and your truth: The Psalmist makes a prayer. ANd he asks for two things. Firs,t he asks for God’s light. Now, we’ve talked a lot about God’s light in this sermon series, because of how important the imagery of light is for the Psalms. You see, so much of the Psalms is trying to work out that central benediction from teh book of Numbers, “May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he make his face to shine upon you...” So, the Psalmist is asking that God would make his light shine on him. He wants to see God again. He wants God to light up his world, to bring dawn to his darkness, to bring morning to his night, to bring light too his gloom. Of course, he also wants GOd’s truth. he wants to see things from God’s persepctive. One of the problems with peope who have no hope, is because they are living in darkness, they cannot see reality clearly. So when someone is feeling hopeless, it has a way of distorting their life. ANd so the Psalmist says, “god I am feeling hopeless, so I know that I am distorting reality. Help me to see things clearly. Help me to have truth. God help me perceive things accurately. Give me your presence, God, but also give me your word. Give me your love, but give me your truth. God help me to see things as they really are.

Some of you are living in a great darkness, and gloom surrounds you, and it is hard to get up in the morning because you feel the weight of hte world pressing down on you from every side. ANd you ened God to light up your life. Some of you are here today, and you cannot see the world aright, and you ned God’s truth to guide you. Will you ask him to help you?

Let them lead me: OF course, God’s truth and light are not static in our life. They do not leave us where we are. They will move us. And the Psalmist asks that God would let his truth and his light guide him. He wants them to direct him in his ways. He wants them to give him a vision for what it looks like to move forward. One of the most bracing things about this Psalm is the idea here that the journey to hope is a journey. It doesn’t take place immediately. ANd the only way you’re going to get out of that ravine, the only way you’re going to get out of that pit, the only way you’re going to make it home is if you have God take you there.

Illustration: Most of you know that I come from a family of 8 children. and so I am the middle child, number 3. And the thign about middle children, is they tend to get forgotten in places. So my dear parents, they had 8 kids, its amazing that they were able to raise some relatively functional children. But anyways, I digress. When I was a child, my older brothers had i think art classes, and so my parents would leave me in daycare after shcool. Well, one time, my parents came and picked up my brothers from their art classes, but guess who they forgot at daycare. And so, I’m waiting around til 5 or 6. And my brothers are probably just causing all kinds of problems for my parents. And here I am, just totally alone. ANd finally, i’m like the last kid at teh daycare, so they call my parents and they put me on the phoen. This is the point that the Psalmist is at, right? He is crying and weeping, and he is alone in the pit. ANd he has no way of getting home on his own, and he feels forgotten, and it is this anxious plea that God would come and get him. And that God would take him home. Which is exactly what the movement of hte Psalm does.

To your hill, to your tabernacle, to your altar: In fact, we see as this Psalm is building that there is this movement, up the holy mountain. And probably this is talking about Mount Zion, wehre Jerusalem is located. And so God’s light and truth are taking the Psalmist up the long winding road to Jerusalem. And they get there, and they go straight to God’s “dwelling.” Now, the word here is actualyl “tabernacle,” which can refer to the temple. So God leads them up the mountain, to the temple. ANd there, straight to the altar. Straight to the place that daily sacrifices woudl be offered so that God’s peopel would have a way to God. And they see all the blood which is spilled to make a way, but the jounrye does not end there.

To God my exceeding joy: Because at the center of the temple was the chamber which was called “the holy of holies.” And the “holy of holies” was thep lace where God had designated that his holy presence woudl be located. And to get there you would have to go to the temple, past the altar, and that is the place where the presence of God dwelt. And there is exactly where the light and truth lead thbe Psalmist. It is not enough for him to go to God’s city, it is not enough for him to go to God’s house, it is not enoughh for him to go to God’s altar, no, he wants to go to God’s presence. He says to “God my exceeding joy.” Dear, friendxs, the only place where you and I can find hope is in God’s presence, and in God’s presence alone.

CHrist our hope: Of cours,e for New Testament believers, the order is reverted. Whereas in teh Old Testament, God’s people would three times a year go to Jerusalem, for Christians, we know that instead of us going to Jerusalem to get to God, God came to Jerusalem to get to us. Instead of God’s people having to go up the mountain, God came down the mountain to get to us. Ands instead of us going to God’s temple, God’s temple came to us. IN fact, in , we see that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. That word for “dwelt” is the same word for “tabernacle.” IN the Old Testamnt, God’s peopel would go to the tabernacle and then the temple, in the New Tesatment, the tabernacle comes to us. In teh Old Testament, believers would go to the altar to make a way to God. In the New Testament, God offers himself on teh altar to make a sacrifice. Instead of us making a sacrifice so we can have peace with God, God made a sacrifice so he might have peace with us. Instead of us putting our heads on the sacrifice, so that it would receive our guilt, God puts his hand on the Son so he might receive our sacrifice. In the Old Testament, we learned that to get to the presence of God we would have to go on this long journey to Jeruslame, but in the New Testament, we learn that Jesus Christ is emmanuel, “God with us.” That whoever reaches out his hands and grabs hold of Christ, whoever puts their faith in him can have teh presence of God right there, right where he is. In the Old Testametn, we had toi go to hope. In the New Testament, GOd’s hope comes to us.

So, how can I walk out of this hope? The rest of the Psalm guides us in not only hope’s journey, but in how we live out of this hope.

The source of hope

The presence

Bring me to your presence

The hope

Why are you cast down? The first thing that you ened to do is you need to talk to yourself. Now, as I say that, you are probably like, “Wiat, what did he just say? I thought I wasn’t supposed to listen to the voices in my head.” Well here’s teh deal, we are always talking to ourselves, even right now, as I’m preaching, you are telling yourself what you observe about me. And what we need to do is we need to learn to address ourselves in an appropriate way. As we have journeyed through this place to hope, we need to learn to talk to ourselves. When we feel our soul is so downcast, when we feel like life is psent, when we feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, when we feel like htere is no hope, we need to ask ourselves why we feel that way. What in our lives is causing this turmoil? What is causing this gloom? What is causing this depression? Why are you so downcast? When we learn to ask ourselves why instead of just assuming that it’s warranted then we can hold it up against God’s light and truth.

Hope in God

And when we see our sufferings compared with teh glroy to be revealed in us. there is absolutely no match. I love what says...

Here is the thing, when we put our hope in anything other than God, our hopes will ultimately let us down. I love what Thabiti Anyabwile says, that our hopes are only as good as the object or our hopes. AN duntil we are willing to hold those things up, and let them shrivel in light of God’s word, they will always abandon us. Ther eason that

Hope in God: And after we hold up our sufferings to the light of God’s word, the light of God’s truth, we need to tell ourselves, hope in God. Put our hope in him. Place our trust in him. Set our eyes on him. Has he not given his son as the payment for our debts? Has he not given us eternal life? Has hje not made a way for us? Has he not put the accuser to rest? Has he not taken our sins and given us his righteousness? Has he not washed us clean in teh pure blood of our son? Truly my friends, my heart will again praise him.

Is he your hope? So as we’re closing out our service today, let me ask you this simple question. Is he your hope? Maybe you’ve put your hope in your work and you’re really hoping that your work will just give you what you’re relaly hoping for? Maybe you’ve put your hope in your family. You feel like if your marriage or your children could just get to this place, then you’d be happy. Maybe you’re hoping for some great political movement, and you think, man, everything will be great if I could just get my political party into office, or if I could just get that other party to stop? Dear friend, is this hope yours? Can you really say with genuine faith that Jesus is yours? If Jesus is not a bigger hope to you than your family, a bigger hope than your career, a bigger hope than your politics, then Jesus is not your hope at all. He is either everything or nothing. If he is nothign, our hearts despair, but if he is everything, though the wind blows, and the waves crash, our hearts are anchored in him. Let’s pray.