SPEAKER_00: Our scripture reading this morning is taken from Psalms, Psalms 42.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in your bulletins, and it's also in our Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: There are Bibles underneath the seats in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a bulletin, or if you'd like to read from your Bible on page 439.
SPEAKER_00: But let's read God's word together this morning.
SPEAKER_00: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
SPEAKER_00: My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
SPEAKER_00: When shall I come and appear before God?
SPEAKER_00: Tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go to with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude-keeping festival.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you cast down on my soul and and why are you in turmoil within me?
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: My soul is cast down within me.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan, Hermon from Mount Mizar, deep cause to deep at the roar of your waterfalls.
SPEAKER_00: All your breakers and your ways have gone over me day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Commands day by day.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord commands his steadfast love, and and at night his song is with me.
SPEAKER_00: A prayer to God of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I say to my God, to God, my rock, Why have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
SPEAKER_00: And as and as with a deadly wounds in my body, my adversaries taunt me while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil turmoil within me?
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: For I shall again praise Him my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you open our eyes that we might behold wondrous things from your word?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're asking that the Holy Spirit would take the word of God and apply to each of our hearts where it needs application.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that you would give me clarity and that you would hide me behind the cross and that only what you want said this morning would be said.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we we desire to see your face this day.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we are asking that as we leave here this morning, we would each be able to say that it has been good for us to be in the house of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask a question this morning.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with your fears?
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with your anxieties and your disappointments?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe even your depression.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
SPEAKER_00: How do you manage those things in your lives, in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: It's different for each of us.
SPEAKER_00: Each of us have a different go-to move, you might say, when we are experiencing those things, when we're going through those things.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us withdraw and and we cut other people off.
SPEAKER_00: Something happens to you and you go into yourself, and you don't really want to be around people.
SPEAKER_00: You won't want to talk to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: You don't really want to be bothered.
SPEAKER_00: You you withdraw, you go into yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are moody and irritable.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that you withdraw and don't want to be by yourself, be by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to be around you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're such an irritant and you're so grumpy and you're short and all the various things.
SPEAKER_00: But but but when you're under stress, when you're under trouble, when you're in trouble, there are various ways that we we handle that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us lash out at other people.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us immerse ourselves in work and other activities.
SPEAKER_00: You you get nervous, you get anxious, you get you get upset, you you go out into the garden, or you work extra hours at work, but but but but you you try to find a way to deal with that that anxiety and that stress that you're going through and you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us turn to food and to drinking and and maybe to pleasure because you're trying to you're trying to quelch and you're trying to deal with the pain, to deal with the anxiety, to deal with the trouble that's going on in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's generally how we do it.
SPEAKER_00: And and each of us have different ways that we manage our lives.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell us this morning that that's not how God wants us to manage our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that you and I won't have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you and I don't have stressors, it doesn't mean that you and I aren't under pressure from time to time, but but God does not want you and I to learn or to continue to go in our old ways of handling the difficulties and the stresses and the troubles in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I think as we look at this text this morning, we will we will see God giving us tools and giving us a blueprint on how we are to manage and handle these troubles and these difficulties in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: What's a healthy way for us to manage life?
SPEAKER_00: Where is there a healthy way that God lays out for you and I that He says, I even in the midst of the troubles, even in the midst of the difficulties, I'm here and I can help you and I can show you.
SPEAKER_00: And I think Psalms 42 helps us to understand and to see that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things I don't want us to understand is that we're just gonna be we're gonna be picking out things in this text because it's it's it's hard to go verse by verse because this this text is so he's wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: And in one moment he's happy, the next minute he's in despair.
SPEAKER_00: And so so we're just gonna we're gonna pick out things and and hopefully at the end we'll put it all together.
SPEAKER_00: But but one of the things that we need to understand in this text is that this man is wrestling with something that's going on in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And and beloved, this is this is encouraging because it's good to know that that it's all right to wrestle sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes as Christians, we we we figure I gotta I gotta keep a stiff upper lip and I've gotta be stoic and and then and there are things that are just going crazy inside of us, and we don't know how to get it out, we don't know where to turn.
SPEAKER_00: And here in this psalm, we see a man that is wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: Listen again, look at verse five.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Why are you cast down on my soul?
SPEAKER_00: And and why are you with turn uh you are are you in turmoil within me?
SPEAKER_00: There's this this cast down, this this downcasting of his soul.
SPEAKER_00: And and then he says, the next thing, hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: So you think, okay, well, he's good to go now.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he he recognized that he was cast down, and so he says, Hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: But then he he goes in, he says, Hope in God, for I shall again praise him my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in verse 6, though, he goes right back, my soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember from you from the land of Jordan and Hermon and Mount Mizar, there's this up and this down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm hoping in God, but then a wave comes over him again and he's cast down.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know about you, but have you ever been in that situation where you're like, okay, I know that God is faithful, I know that God is there, I know that I can trust him.
SPEAKER_00: And and and so you you get you get juiced up, you hear a song, you you talk to somebody, and and and then you walk out the door, and then it comes on you again.
SPEAKER_00: So it's going on with this psalmist, with this, with this, this individual here.
SPEAKER_00: This this back and this forth in his soul.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, he says, I say to God, my rock.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he knows of God his rock.
SPEAKER_00: But then he says, Why have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
SPEAKER_00: As as with the deadly wounds in my bones, my adversaries taught me while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Why are you cast down on my soul and and why are you in turmoil within me?
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God, for I shall again praise him in my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: There's this wrestling going on.
SPEAKER_00: And beloved, understand that God, in his word, gives us space for the wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: Well, so many times we come to church, and all we got is answers for folks, and we don't have enough time to sit down and listen to them as they they do work and they do battle with the things that are going on in their soul.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm a safe place, come to me, I can handle that.
SPEAKER_00: Here you have this psalmist.
SPEAKER_00: So, this thing we see here is that there's this wrestling, and and and you're gonna wrestle in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't wrestled yet, you that's as as my godmother used to say, live long enough.
SPEAKER_00: Live long enough.
SPEAKER_00: You'll wrestle, live long enough.
SPEAKER_00: You'll you'll wrestle with with children that that don't want to act right, live long enough.
SPEAKER_00: You'll wrestle with struct and stress and and things on your job, live long enough.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be those wrestlings that you have in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: And and and what the psalmist is letting us know is that that there's a place where we can wrestle.
SPEAKER_00: There's a place where you, and there's a safe place where you and I can go and we can bring these burdens and these things to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Notice something else here is that he doesn't pretend that nothing is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I got problems.
SPEAKER_00: This my soul is in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I'm wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing business with his emotions, he's recognizing I'm anxious, I'm I'm angry, I'm I'm scared, I'm whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: He he recognizes the emotions that are going on in his soul.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't ignore them, he doesn't pretend that they're not there.
SPEAKER_00: He says, they're there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared, I'm angry, I'm anxious, I'm I'm confused.
SPEAKER_00: He he wrestles with what's there.
SPEAKER_00: And and beloved, this is so essential and important for us in our Christian walk that that oftentimes we pay we pay little attention to what's going on in our souls and our emotions.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us those emotions as lights on the dashboard.
SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, God is saying to you and me that that when those lights come on, it's time to do business with God.
SPEAKER_00: Something's out of wax, something's not right, and I need to pay attention to that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to put tape over the dashboard and and turn and act like that light isn't there.
SPEAKER_00: I need to pay attention to what's going on in my soul.
SPEAKER_00: You scared this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: You're afraid to go to work tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to have that conversation with that person?
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, there's something going on in my soul that I need to pay attention to.
SPEAKER_00: And God gives us these things that we might turn to Him and we might pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of burying them under and saying, Oh, it's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm not gonna worry about it, oh, I'm just gonna tough it out.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of just being honest and saying, God, this is what's going on in my soul.
SPEAKER_00: And beloved, he God welcomes that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's like God asked you, What's wrong with you?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nothing else fine.
SPEAKER_00: God knows nothing, everything isn't fine.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those those emotions, those, those things that are going on in our souls and in our hearts are are things that that God allows to happen so that that you and I could stop and say, something's wrong with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trusting God in some area of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I need to pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: When I go out in the garden and I'm working all day long, and I and I that might be time, but if I'm out there, that's fine, but I need to be praying when I'm out there.
SPEAKER_00: I I have found with my own soul and my own heart, I didn't do a whole lot of praying, I did a lot of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm just trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go, I like to detail cards, so I would go and detail cards, and you know, I'm thinking while I'm out there, but I'm not praying.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, I'm not, I'm not saying to God, God, you know, I'm I'm afraid of this situation right here, and I don't know why this is going on, and and and and and I don't know where the answers are going to come from, and I don't want to have this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't saying that, I was just thinking about the problem instead of going to God with the problem and spelling it out to God.
SPEAKER_00: So the psalmist is causes us to to show he wants us to understand that it's okay to pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: They're there for us to pay attention to, they're there for us to to to to to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: Dear ones, what's going on in your soul this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you wrestling?
SPEAKER_00: What's what has you cast down in your soul?
SPEAKER_00: Have you talked to God?
SPEAKER_00: Have you wrestled with him?
SPEAKER_00: Have you laid it all out there and said to God, God, this is what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to deal with this.
SPEAKER_00: Have you had that conversation with God?
SPEAKER_00: Notice something else here about this psalm, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't pray one time and all is settled and well.
SPEAKER_00: It's just not a one-time prayer that's going on with the psalmist here.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says in verse 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: Day and night.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't, you know, sometimes we just think that, you know, this wrestling is just gonna be a one-time thing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll get on my knees and I'll pray, and then I'll get up and everything will be okay.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist here lets me know.
SPEAKER_00: He lets us know, my tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: This has been an ongoing thing, and sometimes, beloved, sometimes the the Lord He can answer the prayer right then and there.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that, but sometimes he keeps us in it so that he can teach you and I how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if God answered my prayers just like that, I wouldn't worry about I wouldn't be a man that wouldn't pray.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he just lets it linger so that you and I might learn to draw on him, you and I might learn to rest in him, you and I might learn to depend on him and call on him and wait on him.
SPEAKER_00: There's a muscle that God is building in your souls.
SPEAKER_00: We are so used to getting everything we want right now, right then, right there.
SPEAKER_00: God says, No, I need to teach you how to wait.
SPEAKER_00: I need to teach you how to rest in me, I need to teach you how to trust me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take care of the situation, but you need to learn how to wait.
SPEAKER_00: In the psalmist says, My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: No, something else we see here is that he has various types of enemies.
SPEAKER_00: We read a text like this, and we read a text in the Psalms that talks about the enemies, and we're like, Well, I ain't got nobody chasing me and trying to kill me or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: And and we tend to discard the enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he doesn't necessarily give you a detail of what the enemies are in the Psalms because the enemies can be a various and a number of numerous different things.
SPEAKER_00: He's got two different kinds of enemies.
SPEAKER_00: He's got enemies from within and enemies from without.
SPEAKER_00: And those enemies from within can be those voices that that ring and roll in our heads over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, God's gonna leave you, God's not gonna take care of you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you trusted God to do this, and this isn't gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't think you can actually do that, do you?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you what you you you you ask God to do what?
SPEAKER_00: You believe that God's gonna do this?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you you look at you, you're not as good as that person.
SPEAKER_00: All these voices that ring in our heads that become enemies of our soul and keep us from trusting God and stepping out on faith and doing it, what it is that God would have us to do.
SPEAKER_00: We won't listen because the enemies of our own minds and our own hearts are crying out against us and telling us what we cannot do.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are that God would actually do that with you?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the enemies from within.
SPEAKER_00: We all have them.
SPEAKER_00: You have them, I have them.
SPEAKER_00: You know those voices that you sit in your bed at night and those things are just whispering to you, what's gonna happen to me?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna go happen with my children.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I messed up, uh I'm all I'm always screwing up.
SPEAKER_00: That was really stupid of me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when am I ever gonna get my life together?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the voices that the enemies they ring and it's here and and they're there in and day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's the enemies from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: The enemies from the outside are those enemies that tell us things that are contrary to God and his word, or there might be literal enemies that your family members, or there might be someone on your job that's against you that are from the outside, and they're saying, I'm gonna get you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ruin your life, I'm gonna ruin your job, I'm gonna take this away from you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the enemies are, but they're they can be internal, they can be external, but we all have the enemies of our souls.
SPEAKER_00: We've got the ultimate enemy, which is the devil, who is roaring about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Satan doesn't have any good intended for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, as Christians, we need to talk more about the impact and the influence of the enemy and the demons of this world because they're out there.
SPEAKER_00: They're just they're just dressed up and they look sophisticated in our world, but they're still there.
SPEAKER_00: You think everything you hear on TV, you think all the messages that are coming at us from this world are just messages from people.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those messages are demonically influenced.
SPEAKER_00: And the enemy of our soul wants to lull you and I to sleep and to trick you and I to believing things that aren't true.
SPEAKER_00: They're enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Voices from without and voices from within.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something else that this psalmist, even the midst of everything that he's going through, he understands something about worship.
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just it's just it's just this this psalm is just so much going on in this psalm.
SPEAKER_00: You look at verse 4 of this psalm, he says, These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in the procession of the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude-keeping festival.
SPEAKER_00: That in the midst of everything that's going on, there's this sense within his soul that I need to get to church.
SPEAKER_00: I need to worship.
SPEAKER_00: Now, beloved, if we're honest, and I'm gonna be honest with you, most of the time when I'm going through something, church is the last thing I'm thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to come.
SPEAKER_00: I can think of a million and one excuses why I don't need to be here.
SPEAKER_00: But the psalmist recognized, he realized, oh, wait, there's something going on in the worship.
SPEAKER_00: There's something going on gathering with the saints.
SPEAKER_00: There's something going on when songs are being sung, there's something going on when the conversation is being had.
SPEAKER_00: God is at work, and and and what Satan wants to do when we're going through something, he wants to pull you out of the midst of the congregation of the people of God so that he can have at you.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when the fountain of life closed and and I was going through some stuff and and and I was depressed and it was just dark, and and and and I wasn't coming to church.
SPEAKER_00: Tracy was coming to church, but I wouldn't come.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to come to church, didn't want to read my Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But every once in a while I would come, I would show up, and I would show up.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God can use our bad motives.
SPEAKER_00: I was showing up because I knew everybody knew I was a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want y'all to think I was that much of a heathen.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, okay, let me go make an appearance every once in a while just to keep the heat off.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want them to, I don't want nobody calling me, I don't want nobody, so I just would go and keep the heat off and show up.
SPEAKER_00: But it was interesting that when I came into the house of the Lord, I would hear a song and it would speak to my soul.
SPEAKER_00: But I would run out with the spirit was at word.
SPEAKER_00: I would have a conversation with somebody and it would just quicken my soul.
SPEAKER_00: But I would run out because I didn't want to, I didn't want to be in the house, but but God was at work.
SPEAKER_00: And and the psalmist says it's for these things I remember as I pour out my soul how I would go to the throne and lead them in the procession to the house of God with glass shouts for songs and praise and the multitude keeping festival.
SPEAKER_00: He knew I need to get to the house of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need this place, beloved.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't perfect, it's not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have all our dots, uh, our eyes dotted in the T's crossed, but it's not perfect, but it is a communion of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: This is where God works.
SPEAKER_00: This is where God does business with us corporately.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me hustle hasten on.
SPEAKER_00: So so so he knows he needs worship, but ultimately he knows who he needs to turn to.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to verse one.
SPEAKER_00: He says this he says, as the deer pants for the flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, oh God.
SPEAKER_00: My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
SPEAKER_00: When shall I come and appear before God?
SPEAKER_00: He recognized, he understands, he knows.
SPEAKER_00: I I know I got a lot going on in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I go a lot, I got a lot that I'm afraid of.
SPEAKER_00: I got all these emotions burling up inside me, but I need God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, as a deer pants for string.
SPEAKER_00: Flowing streams.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that song, and I would sing this song, and it was, you know, it was a nice camp song.
SPEAKER_00: As a deer, Pants of Florida water, you know, said that one there, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it just seems so sentimental.
SPEAKER_00: We get this picture in our mind of this Bambi type deer, this nice flowing stream.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what's going on here with this deer.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever's going on, this deer can't find water.
SPEAKER_00: He can't find water.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a drought in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's maybe it's dried up, and the streams are dried up.
SPEAKER_00: And he has been going day and out and day and day and day looking for water to quench his thirst.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist says, just like that deer, I need my God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I need God to satisfy my soul.
SPEAKER_00: I can't get it satisfied from shopping.
SPEAKER_00: I can't get it satisfied from working extra hours and trying to divert my attention from the things that are going on.
SPEAKER_00: The only one, the only thing that can satisfy my soul is God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says that's where he turns, the psalmist.
SPEAKER_00: This whole psalm is a psalm of a man wrestling, but he's wrestling in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh beloved, that's what he's calling us to do.
SPEAKER_00: He's not asking you to figure life out on your own.
SPEAKER_00: He's not asking you to do things on your own.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one you need.
SPEAKER_00: As I close, are there any examples of New Testament saints wrestling and turning to God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, yes, and I don't have time to read them all, but you can look at Saul Paul, the restorn in his flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Three times he's praying, God, get this out of me.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, God says, I'm not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: My grace is sufficient, my strength is made perfect in your weakness, and you're gonna depend on me.
SPEAKER_00: We see the Holy Spirit in the old, in the gospels and in the New Testament, where the Spirit of God wrestles with us and wrestles for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it tells us in Romans chapter 8 that he takes those prayers and he ushers them up.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know what to say, you don't know why you're feeling like you're feeling, you don't know what you need, but the Holy Spirit takes that and says, Go straight up into the throne of God, right into the presence of God with the son sitting right next to him, and he prays and he says, This is what he needs.
SPEAKER_00: Glory.
SPEAKER_00: That I got somebody that actually knows how to pray on my behalf.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that if the Holy Spirit asks God to do it, he's gonna get it done.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: But but not only Jesus, but that, but Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Tom reminded us when uh Jesus was in the sermon on on the high priestly prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He reminds us that Jesus, when in his time of trouble, he turned to he turned to God.
SPEAKER_00: He prays, he turns his attention to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking God to do for him what only he can do.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, listen to these words.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and he came out and he went, as it was his custom to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him, and when he had come to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter in temptation.
SPEAKER_00: And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, and saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: Here he is in the in the in the depths of his his anguish, and what is he doing?
SPEAKER_00: He is going to God to help him and to fix him and to fix the situation.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 26, 27 and verse 46, and it says this, in about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama Sebakhtani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: He cries out and says, God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we often feel.
SPEAKER_00: God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: But listen to what he says in Luke chapter 23 and verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus, after the Father had turned his back on Jesus, the Jesus cries out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that even if for a moment it was dark, he was not going to abandon him.
SPEAKER_00: And beloved, if Jesus can hope in God, if Jesus on the cross, bearing our sins and bearing hell on the cross, and the Father turns his back on Jesus, and if Jesus can say, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: And then after it's all over, he says, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He recognized and realized that even if he takes me through the valley of the shadow of death, he is for me.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, what do you do with your troubles?
SPEAKER_00: How have you been managing them?
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing with that financial situation?
SPEAKER_00: How have you been managing that?
SPEAKER_00: Hope and God.
SPEAKER_00: What have you been doing with that child that isn't, isn't it, it doesn't seem like it's they're going the right way and your soul is anguished over what you see?
SPEAKER_00: Hope and God.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing with that health situation that you're struggling with and that you're going through?
SPEAKER_00: Hope and God.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we often put our hope in so many different things.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're honest, Lord, there are so many areas in which we don't trust you and we try to figure it out on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you teach us how to wrestle with the things that are troubling our souls?
SPEAKER_00: Would you teach us, Lord, that that our our go-to move won't be shopping or drinking or working or that our go-to move will be to pan after you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Father, would you work that in each one of our souls this day?
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.