SPEAKER_00: So I have a question for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you talk to yourself?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of this.
SPEAKER_00: I talk to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not afraid to admit it.
SPEAKER_00: I've been talking to myself uh for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't like I I like to talk, okay, so uh if nobody else will listen, I'll talk to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I I found that I talk to myself a lot when I am like really focused in on something, right?
SPEAKER_00: So like right now, we're in annual budgeting season.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of spreadsheets, right, Karen?
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at them and I'm like, okay, this cell edited this one two times this, all this.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking out the formulas for Excel as I'm working through it and where things go.
SPEAKER_00: Or I do it a lot with yard work, right?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, um, I'm convinced I'm gonna reclaim the title of yard of the month at some point.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so I'm I'm doing a lot of work out there, and uh Becky and the kids, they were away the other day.
SPEAKER_00: I was in the yard and I'm there, and we we have some palmetto trees in our yard and everything like that.
SPEAKER_00: And I've said before, I did not realize how much maintenance those things were gonna be uh when we first got in for them to keep looking good.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm up there, got a new eight-foot ladder, right?
SPEAKER_00: My four foot wasn't cutting it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm up there and I have my pole chainsaw, and I'm just like, okay, just get it up over that one, all right, over here, there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right, that hurts.
SPEAKER_00: We're going down.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like I'm talking through, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to myself.
SPEAKER_00: And we all talk to ourselves at different points.
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's sometimes when I'm focused, other times it's when I'm frustrated, like, calm down, Blake.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Calm down.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be able to make through this, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's something that's come up a lot more and more here recently, right, with the positive self-talk as opposed to the negative self-talk.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I've Googled it before, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Is it okay if I talk to myself?
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, we're fine.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Google says we're fine.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can talk to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But I love it whenever science or psychology catches up to the ancient wisdom found in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And like when we go here to Psalm 42, we're able to see that this group of singers and songwriters, the sons of Korah, were able to show us God so divinely inspired them to give to God's people, the nation of Israel, there, and for it to be recorded for us in the Bible, for us to see what do we do in times when tears are our food day and night?
SPEAKER_00: How do we live life?
SPEAKER_00: How do we keep moving forward?
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, we're going to see from God's word, we probably need to stop listening to ourselves so much and start talking to ourselves just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: As we go to Psalm 42, would you join me as we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Gracious Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, God, we pray that you give us eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: God, that you give us ears to hear.
SPEAKER_00: And God, we pray that you would speak.
SPEAKER_00: For we your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_00: It's through Christ we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The first truth that I want you to see from this psalm this morning is this followers of God can still suffer from despair.
SPEAKER_00: Followers of God.
SPEAKER_00: We're able to see this.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of Korah who wrote this psalm, like they're they're not far from God.
SPEAKER_00: They're not being rebellious against God, they're not in a wandering season.
SPEAKER_00: No, but they desire God more than anything else, and things are still not going great in their life.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 1, 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: This psalm was written by those who loved and followed and desired God.
SPEAKER_00: People that recognize that their souls can thirst, and their souls can only be satisfied when they have drunk deeply from God.
SPEAKER_00: And there are some today that say this can't happen to followers of God.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, they're flat wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to put a mask on, you don't have to slap a fake smile on, you don't have to pretend like everything is all right and fine all the time.
SPEAKER_00: This psalm, I love how real it is.
SPEAKER_00: Even when Trudy was beautifully reading it for us here just a moment ago.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you saw the kind of like the peaks and the valleys, the I'm hoping God my soul is downcast within me.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I will hope everybody's surrounding me.
SPEAKER_00: And it's back and forth, but that's like our lives, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's in our hearts, that's in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: We feel it.
SPEAKER_00: This psalm is real, and the psalm recognizes that we are whole people.
SPEAKER_00: We have a soul and a body.
SPEAKER_00: Our bodies thirst, our souls thirst.
SPEAKER_00: And just because we follow God doesn't mean that we're exempt from despair.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of different sources of despair here in this life.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist highlights a few of those.
SPEAKER_00: A source of despair could just be dryness, spiritual dryness in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That you're thirsty, that you know what it's like to be working in the yard or walking Disney World or something else like that, and you feel like all of the moisture has left your body, and your mouth is dry and sticking to your tongue is sticking to the roof of your mouth, and you are breathing heavy, and you need a cold drink to satisfy your thirst.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing can happen to us spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: This will happen.
SPEAKER_00: If it hasn't happened to you yet, just wait.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And some, when they go through this, will become overly discouraged and think that they're doing something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, sometimes God feeling distant, God feeling far away, your soul feeling thirsty can be the result of you living in sin, of you being wayward, of you neglecting God.
SPEAKER_00: It could be the consequences of choices that you've made, but this can even happen to those who are faithfully following and seeking God.
SPEAKER_00: But we're instructed what to do in these times.
SPEAKER_00: Don't run away from God, but run all the harder towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Grow in your desire for God more and more.
SPEAKER_00: The question: when shall I come and appear before God?
SPEAKER_00: The desire not to get as far away from Him as possible, but the desire to be in His presence.
SPEAKER_00: And this, this despair that we can sometimes feel, that's there are internal components to it, but there are also external components as well.
SPEAKER_00: The despair can be compounded when we look to the outside.
SPEAKER_00: The second place would be taunts from the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Taunts from the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: 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: The psalmist are feeling this internally, and not only are they having these questions or doubts or this dryness that's bubbling up from within, but no, they are getting assaulted from the outside with these taunts and these jeers and these questions.
SPEAKER_00: Where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: And this can come from family members, this can come from co-workers and friends, this can come from people that you're sharing the gospel with.
SPEAKER_00: And they'll pelt you with questions and questions, and so much so that you begin to ask them yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Where is my God?
SPEAKER_00: Another source of despair would be from thinking that your best days are behind you and not ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in the procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude-keeping festival.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist is remembering times in the past when there would be worshiping and praising and rejoicing together, and we don't know why the psalmists have been removed from this setting right now.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if it's exile, we don't know if they're on the run from trouble, but the psalmist is pouring out their souls and they're remembering worshiping God with the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: That there had been a lack of meeting together for corporate worship, and it had been felt.
SPEAKER_00: They had felt the oppression of the enemy, and they had felt the isolation from worshiping with others.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, I remember there was a time I was uh serving at a church in Georgia, and we were on a mission trip with some college students where we went up to Toronto, uh, up in Canada.
SPEAKER_00: And Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is a huge melting pot.
SPEAKER_00: And while we were up there, we were gonna be working with uh some local missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they had some of our North American Mission Board missionaries, but they also had some of our international mission board missionaries there because of the number of countries that are represented in that metropolitan area.
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning of our time there, before we started going on college campuses and doing spiritual surveys and sharing the gospel with people, the missionaries there took us to different houses of worship so that we could not participate in but observe some of what was taking place in the kind of folks that we would be sharing the gospel with.
SPEAKER_00: And that was an eye-opening experience for me.
SPEAKER_00: Because over the course of one day, they had organized all of these trips and to meet with these religious leaders at these different houses of worship.
SPEAKER_00: We went to a Muslim mosque, a Sikh gudwara, and we went to a Hindu temple.
SPEAKER_00: And as we went to each of these places, we in the Muslim mosque were separated, men and women.
SPEAKER_00: In the Sikh Gudwara, we were going around to different rooms and seeing and smelling all of the different things that were going on.
SPEAKER_00: And then we go to the Hindu temple where we are seeing them wake up their gods and opening the cabinets, and we see small children pouring out glasses of milk onto metallic snakes, and we could feel the heaviness, we could feel the spiritual darkness, and it was deeply troubling for a lot of our college students.
SPEAKER_00: And as I'm over there and trying to shepherd them and lead them through this, and we're processing this and praying through it, and y'all, it was beautiful the way the missionaries had designed it.
SPEAKER_00: Because that night we were going to Wednesday night church with this Pakistani Christian fellowship that was there.
SPEAKER_00: And we were worshiping with brothers and sisters, the whole service was in Punjabi, did not understand a word.
SPEAKER_00: But my goodness, what we felt in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: The unity, the shared love and devotion for the one true God, and I didn't have to understand what was going on.
SPEAKER_00: And I could hum along to the tunes of the songs that I knew.
SPEAKER_00: I could sing the ones in English in my heart and in my in our pew.
SPEAKER_00: But in those moments, I was remembering, like being back and worshiping with my church family, and but then like how dark and how isolating and how oppressive it was in certain areas.
SPEAKER_00: And we longed to be back.
SPEAKER_00: We longed for this to be the case.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us experienced this through COVID, right?
SPEAKER_00: It seems like forever ago, but my goodness, months where we were not able to gather together.
SPEAKER_00: I still remember that first Sunday back at the church that I was serving in Alabama, the first Sunday back when we all came together.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you don't know what you got until it's gone, right?
SPEAKER_00: And to feel all of that taken away and just the singing that took place on that first Sunday back.
SPEAKER_00: The fellowship, the joy for us to be able to regather together.
SPEAKER_00: That we know what it's like for feeling isolated and that God is far away.
SPEAKER_00: The internal and the external oppression.
SPEAKER_00: But for us to remember, like our best days are not behind us but are ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, God has gifted us the body, and one day, as Spencer read for us early on, the dwelling place of God will be with man.
SPEAKER_00: And we will be with him as our God, and we will be with him as his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we need to identify some of these sources of despair.
SPEAKER_00: And it can feel like a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: This constant barrage of troubles, deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls.
SPEAKER_00: All your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, does it feel sometimes just like trouble after trouble is pelting you?
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like a constant, like as constant as the waves are coming up against the seashore, that it feels like sometimes in seasons, trouble after trouble is just washing up, breaking against crashing into your life.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are those moments where it feels like God is not acting, but there's a lot of action from our enemies around us.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_00: I say 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: As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taught me while they say to me all the day long, again, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: These verses right here, verses 9 and 10, it's mingled faith and questions.
SPEAKER_00: I say to God, my rock, like that's a declaration, right?
SPEAKER_00: That God, you are my rock, you are my anchor, you are what is firm and sure in what I am standing on, what is immovable, but I'm asking you, God, as my rock, why have you forgotten me?
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you acting?
SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
SPEAKER_00: You can ask God questions.
SPEAKER_00: There is a difference between questioning God and asking God questions.
SPEAKER_00: When you're questioning God, you're assuming a position of authority, kind of like uh if if you were to put God in the witness stand and you're asking him questions, cross-examination, right?
SPEAKER_00: But when we ask God questions, it's more like a child coming to a parent, seeking to understand.
SPEAKER_00: And we can ask God these questions, the questions that penetrate down to bone level.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can see a follower of God is experiencing all of this despair.
SPEAKER_00: We are not exempt from trouble in this life, but we can be honest with God in the midst of our troubles in this life, and God gave us Psalm 42.
SPEAKER_00: God can handle your despair.
SPEAKER_00: God is strong enough for you to be able to pour out your heart to Him.
SPEAKER_00: So when times of despair come, where will you run?
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna run away from God or straight to God?
SPEAKER_00: So followers of God can experience despair in this life.
SPEAKER_00: But the second truth this morning is this followers of God can still hope in God during despair.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you a series from this psalm of ways that you can set your hope on God.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing I need you to remember is this do not forsake your source of life.
SPEAKER_00: Do not forsake your source of life.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse five.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you cast down, O my soul?
SPEAKER_00: 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: And you might be tempted in those moments of despair to think that following God doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Because again, it's working from a faulty assumption that if you follow God, everything should be going right in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But in these moments, the psalmist feels far from God but doesn't go looking for other sources of fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist, they write about hope, not hope in the circumstances changing, but hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible that a source of despair in your life is you believing God for promises that he never made to you.
SPEAKER_00: Holding God to words that he never said, or banking everything on the outcome being different, or the words coming out of the mouth of the doctor, or the judge being different.
SPEAKER_00: But our hope is not in our circumstances changing.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is in God, and He is the one, you can write it in, that we pour out our souls to.
SPEAKER_00: Pour out your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: These things I remember as I pour out my soul.
SPEAKER_00: Be honest with God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't hold back.
SPEAKER_00: You can let God know what you're feeling.
SPEAKER_00: He already knows it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, I still remember.
SPEAKER_00: I I shared it during my first year here with you all.
SPEAKER_00: We were preaching through the book of Philippians together, that New Testament letter with the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And that first half of that year was a true low point for me in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of you, not because of the church, but because of something that was happening inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if some of you remember, but I shared as a part of that week, that year.
SPEAKER_00: Every Saturday night after dinner, I would get a sinking feeling in my stomach, and I would dread the next morning.
SPEAKER_00: It was difficult for me to sleep Saturday night.
SPEAKER_00: And when I did fall asleep and I woke up that next morning, that sinking feeling was there again.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I kept having all of these thoughts of sitting right there in that seat in that pew and thinking about what would happen right now if I just went in the bathroom stall and locked myself in there and didn't come out.
SPEAKER_00: What if something happened to me and I wasn't able to stand up and to deliver a sermon?
SPEAKER_00: What if I stand up and say something wrong?
SPEAKER_00: What if I stand up and I am just royally messing up?
SPEAKER_00: And feeling like everything was riding on me, feeling the weight of the world pressing down against me and wondering, what if I just moved my family here and it was a mistake?
SPEAKER_00: What if my this is my livelihood?
SPEAKER_00: I've been public speaking for 10 years at that point.
SPEAKER_00: I had never felt a hint of this before.
SPEAKER_00: But it got to the point where I would start to get tunnel vision, the cold sweats, and praise God, it would lift as I was walking up the stairs here.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember in that season pouring out my soul to God.
SPEAKER_00: God, why?
SPEAKER_00: Why is there no joy in this?
SPEAKER_00: Why is there only despair in this?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I not like this?
SPEAKER_00: Was the the one thing I feel like if I'm good at that I could do for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it's being taken away, and I am pouring out my heart to Him and asking, why?
SPEAKER_00: Please fix this and realizing that in those moments and in the weeks to come, the Lord wasn't needing to fix some circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: He was needing to fix me.
SPEAKER_00: And I learned through that season, that difficult season.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I didn't have to go through that season.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God, that season ended.
SPEAKER_00: But I needed to realize it doesn't always rise or fall on me.
SPEAKER_00: If I If I can't stand up, if I uh, you know, start to have chest pains or whatever there in the pew and I need to step to the back, the Lord will provide.
SPEAKER_00: Someone else.
SPEAKER_00: So get ready.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you are.
SPEAKER_00: But if I'm unable to go, the word will be preached.
SPEAKER_00: And his word won't return void.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't all rise or fall on us.
SPEAKER_00: And we can pour out our souls.
SPEAKER_00: And don't be surprised when you pour out your soul that God pours back into your soul and replaces what was there before with something even better, and that is his peace.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't instantaneous, it wasn't overnight, it was long and drawn out, it required a lot of vulnerability and just letting my guard down and pouring out my soul to God continually.
SPEAKER_00: You might need to pour out your soul to him.
SPEAKER_00: We hope in God, for we shall again praise him our salvation and our God.
SPEAKER_00: The next would be this.
SPEAKER_00: You can write it in.
SPEAKER_00: Remember times when God was near.
SPEAKER_00: Remember those times.
SPEAKER_00: Those significant spiritual mile markers in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, the psalmist would say, How I would go 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: That there are going to be those times when you're filled with despair, those times when you are running on empty, those times when God feels far away.
SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you, remember those times when God was near.
SPEAKER_00: I loved hearing it through Tim Keller years ago.
SPEAKER_00: If there are those moments where it feels like God is far away, that's just letting you know there have been times when you felt he was near.
SPEAKER_00: You know what it's like to feel his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And to maybe feel his hand being removed, it lets you know that his hand was there in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And so go back and try to remember those times when God was near.
SPEAKER_00: It was that way for me this past week.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of our uh kids that came back from Kids Salt this year, and they're wearing some of our chaperones too, wearing our t-shirts, wearing t-shirts here.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it was an incredible week.
SPEAKER_00: I got to go down on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love camp.
SPEAKER_00: I got to go with our students to Somersault the week before that.
SPEAKER_00: Love camp.
SPEAKER_00: And I can remember those different camp experiences that I had growing up and coming back home.
SPEAKER_00: How God uses it like sanctification is a process, right, of becoming holy, becoming more and more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it can take years and years, and there are some times where God does a sanctifying work in your heart, and it's just like a lightning bolt instantaneous all at once for a big chunk, right?
SPEAKER_00: And God, He sees fit to use these times that we carve out to retreat together to be able to hear from Him.
SPEAKER_00: And to see our students worshiping, to see our kids worshiping and sitting under God's word.
SPEAKER_00: I've said it before to some of you here gathered.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know why we thought after we graduate from college we need to stop retreating to hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why we thought maybe we've we've gotten too advanced for us to spend regular time with Him and with others, worshiping, learning, serving.
SPEAKER_00: So get ready.
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about what that looks like for our whole church family.
SPEAKER_00: So preview of coming attractions.
SPEAKER_00: But for us, like, I was driving back on 26, about 9 o'clock this past Tuesday night.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there, I'm listening to a podcast in the car, and I just have to turn it off because I was just feeling so dry.
SPEAKER_00: And I got a little drink when I was there with our kids worshiping.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, God, I want more of that.
SPEAKER_00: I want more of you.
SPEAKER_00: Full confession, and I need to repent this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I've been operating largely out of my own strength and my experiences and conversations with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And I need to return, like we need to return again and again to be filled with God's Spirit and to serve with the strength that He provides, not that we have in and of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us to come to God and to say, we want more of you.
SPEAKER_00: My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_00: I remember these times that I met with you, that I worshiped you, that I learned about you, that I felt the transforming work of the Spirit happen in a concentrated and heightened way.
SPEAKER_00: And God, I'm asking for you to do that again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm needing an experience with you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just go through the motions.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to overcomplicate things, but God, I want you, and I want what you want.
SPEAKER_00: God, please fill us again.
SPEAKER_00: Worshipfully remember times when God was near and ask for him to do it again.
SPEAKER_00: Ask for God to move.
SPEAKER_00: For him to uphold you, to strengthen you, and to lead you through this season.
SPEAKER_00: I would also counsel you, remember that you are a whole person.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist says that tears have been my food day and night.
SPEAKER_00: There's crying going on right here.
SPEAKER_00: There's weeping.
SPEAKER_00: And if we were to deduce some things from this, if tears have been his food day and night, well, he's not eating.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have an appetite.
SPEAKER_00: He's eating tears.
SPEAKER_00: He's not sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: He's crying through the night.
SPEAKER_00: That we have right here some signs of deep depression.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a multitude of ways to be able to address this right here.
SPEAKER_00: And I would want to counsel you, like I've counseled others, that sometimes there are deep and painful things that will take years and years to be able to work through.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are other things that are coming up that not to minimize what it is that you're going through, but sometimes you need a nap and a snack.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: We see that with the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: He had just gotten done going toe-to-toe with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: Right, where he does some trash talking.
SPEAKER_00: That's a fun sermon, but not for today.
SPEAKER_00: And like it is like he is going high point.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then Jezebel hears about it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Queen Jezebel.
SPEAKER_00: And she is bullseye on Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah, he retreats, he runs away, and he is asking God to take his life.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says in 1 Kings 19 that Elijah, he went to sleep, he ate some food, and he regained his strength.
SPEAKER_00: That there is sometimes, it takes a lot in a multitude of ways to be able to address this.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're tired and you're hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's helpful for us to remember that we are whole people, that there are physical and spiritual components of things that we need to look at.
SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, for us, there's a book, I forgot to bring it up here.
SPEAKER_00: I think, Thomas, is it right there in my stack, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's called Spiritual Depression.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna break the fourth wall real quick and come down here, okay?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: This book is called Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd Jones.
SPEAKER_00: Its causes and its cure.
SPEAKER_00: This is an entire book on Psalm 42, the psalm that we're looking at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones was a physician in England during the 20th century that God called him to preach, and he became one of the best preachers of the 20th century.
SPEAKER_00: And this book is a series of Sunday morning sermons that he preached on Psalm 42 because after going from the medical field and coming into the church, he realized that there was a lot of spiritual depression.
SPEAKER_00: And so he had a lady in his church to take down notes from his sermons and then he edited them on the back end and they compiled them together in this book.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that he talks about in this book, in spiritual depression, is that yes, you need to pray more, you need to seek God, and you also need to take care of your body.
SPEAKER_00: Hugely, huge conviction for me.
SPEAKER_00: I need to take great care with what I eat and how physically active I am in addition to these things.
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that we've started doing after supper time, we go for a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: There are times I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather just go sit or lay down.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm always so glad when I did and came back on the other end.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to not only be thinking about, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's what God, He sees us as whole people.
SPEAKER_00: And we're to live all of our lives with all of what we are before him.
SPEAKER_00: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength.
SPEAKER_00: Every part of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And God can look at, address all of us.
SPEAKER_00: All that we are.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would encourage you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, call out to God.
SPEAKER_00: Pray.
SPEAKER_00: Seek His face.
SPEAKER_00: Take great care with what you're eating and putting in your body.
SPEAKER_00: Be physically active as much as you are able.
SPEAKER_00: Pray and take your medicine.
SPEAKER_00: See a counselor.
SPEAKER_00: Talk with someone that is more qualified than me to be able to talk through what it is, all of the layers of what has happened in your life and what is happening to you right now.
SPEAKER_00: We are whole people.
SPEAKER_00: So we can do this to the glory of God, hoping in him, for I shall again praise him my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Next, don't just listen to yourself, talk to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: There are multiple times in Psalm 42, and if you take Psalm 43 with Psalm 42, three times, where the sons of Korah say, Why are you cast down, O my soul?
SPEAKER_00: Not talking to God in prayer, not talking to others in exhortation, but the psalmist talking to themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you cast down, oh my soul?
SPEAKER_00: It's from this book, Spiritual Depression.
SPEAKER_00: There's this quote that I read years ago that has been used to great effect in my life, and it'll be on the screen, and I hope it's a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Take those thoughts that come to you the moment that you wake up in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: You have not originated them, but they start talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: They bring back the problems of yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody is talking.
SPEAKER_00: Who is talking to you?
SPEAKER_00: Yourself is talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this man's treatment in Psalm 42 is this instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
SPEAKER_00: He asks.
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: For I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: For us, if we were to heed the counsel of the reformer Martin Luther, to preach the gospel to yourself multiple times daily.
SPEAKER_00: For us to remind ourselves of the truth and wrestling it deep into our bones.
SPEAKER_00: And don't just listen to the things that naturally arise up out of our feelings or the things that are coming to us from the outside, but for us to talk to ourselves and what do we say?
SPEAKER_00: We say, hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: I shall yet praise Him.
SPEAKER_00: My salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: Next, you can write it in hold fast to truth.
SPEAKER_00: By day, verse 8, the Lord commands his steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: And at night, his song is with me.
SPEAKER_00: A prayer to the God of my life.
SPEAKER_00: But there's the truth of God's love even when it doesn't feel like it.
SPEAKER_00: And do you notice what it says right here?
SPEAKER_00: Songs in the night, where tears had been the diet, now the songs of God are the soundtrack.
SPEAKER_00: And the songs are prayers to God.
SPEAKER_00: That often in what we sing together, directed towards God, can be a prayer of your heart, maybe when the words have run out.
SPEAKER_00: And when we don't have anything else that we feel like we can say, we can just say God's words back to him.
SPEAKER_00: And when we need to tell the truth to ourselves, when we need to speak to ourselves, what better thing could we speak to ourselves than the words of God?
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love like with our family right now, what we're doing is whenever we're in the car together, we're listening to incredible music that sets Scripture to song.
SPEAKER_00: As we're trying to memorize and sneak and hide God's truth into the ears, minds, and hearts of our children, that as we're trying to memorize this so that, I had a professor years ago talk about with children's ministry and teaching memory verses, whether it's at camp or BBS or with your parents, he talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: He had a period of wandering, he was wayward in college, but after the death of his mother, God used that to draw him back into the fold.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I didn't realize it at the time, but all growing up, my parents, my pastors, were planting through God's word little gospel bombs in my soul that the Holy Spirit would detonate, cracking the hardness of our stone-hard hearts, and replacing, as Ezekiel would say, the hearts of stone with a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, we want to hold fast to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, we want to hope in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can have even more confidence in God than the psalmists did when they were in the midst of despair.
SPEAKER_00: Because what they knew looking forward in faith, we now know looking backward by name.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: That we can look to Jesus and we can trust that God did not abandon us.
SPEAKER_00: He is not going to abandon us.
SPEAKER_00: He is not abandoning us right now.
SPEAKER_00: But rather, he did the hardest thing.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who poured himself out before God in prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who on the cross said, I thirst, and my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who died, yes, but who rose again, conquering sin and death forever.
SPEAKER_00: That he is the living waters that we come to and drink of, and we will never be thirsty again.
SPEAKER_00: He is our living hope.
SPEAKER_00: When we hope in God, we don't have to look farther than the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That these are promises that we can hold on to.
SPEAKER_00: That he said it is finished, that he will never leave us nor forsake us, that he is going to return for his own.
SPEAKER_00: These are promises that we can build our lives on, promises that won't leave us empty or disappointed or still looking for more.
SPEAKER_00: But they will be a solid place where we can stand and where we can hope.
SPEAKER_00: We see God, not the changing of our circumstances, but God as our desired outcome.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we can follow God and still experience despair.
SPEAKER_00: And you'd be in good company with those in Scripture and in the history of the church, with Moses, with Elijah, with David and Paul, and then in the history of the church, Augustine and Luther and Charles Spurgeon and Elizabeth Elliot.
SPEAKER_00: Countless men and women who follow, just because they desire God doesn't mean there won't be despair in this world.
SPEAKER_00: But we can still pour out our souls to God during the despair, talking to ourselves, calling ourselves to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you cast down on my soul?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you in turmoil within me?
SPEAKER_00: Hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: I shall again praise him.
SPEAKER_00: My salvation and my God.
SPEAKER_00: You can have this mindset in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just have to listen to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can talk to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Remind yourself that in Jesus, what you're feeling right now, it won't always be like this.
SPEAKER_00: You might be in the pit, but he has promised that he is right there with you.
SPEAKER_00: Check potential sources of your despair.
SPEAKER_00: See what adjustments might need to be made.
SPEAKER_00: But put your hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: Praise him, your salvation and your God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to talk to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: So gracious Heavenly Father, as we as we sit under your word, I know that there are men and women, boys and girls in this room this morning who are feeling deep despair.
SPEAKER_00: Who feel uh a weight, or maybe who don't feel anything.
SPEAKER_00: And they they desire you, they want to desire you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, God, to put our hope in you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to remember that you are there.
SPEAKER_00: That you care.
SPEAKER_00: And that one day you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And the former things will have passed away.
SPEAKER_00: There won't be any weeping or crying or pain or death anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We long for that day, we look for that day.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord Jesus, we pray that you would come quickly.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.