YouTube video sermon
Psalm 42:1-11
This morning, I want us to take just a few minutes to consider Psalm 42. So, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn to Psalm 42. Richard Sibbes, one of the great old Puritan preachers of Cambridge who died in 1635, wrote a whole book on Psalm 42:5. He was called “the sweet dropper” because of how much confidence and joy his sermons caused. He called his book The Soul’s Conflict with Itself, because in Psalm 42:5 that’s exactly what you have; the soul arguing with itself, preaching to itself. You see, hoping in God doesn’t come naturally for sinners like us. We’ve got to preach it to ourselves, and preach diligently and forcefully, or we’ll give way to a downcast and disquieted spirit. Follow along with me as I read Psalm 42:
To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 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.
5 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.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
Therefore, I will remember You
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of Your waterfalls;
all Your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the Lord directs His love,
at night His song is with me –
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 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.
This morning, I want to quickly offer us (be me, specifically) some hope when dealing with discouragement.
It’s Okay To Ask God “Why”
Notice that the Psalmist responds to his circumstances at one point by asking God, “Why?” Verse 9: “I say to God, my rock: ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” The word “forgotten” is an overstatement. And he knows it. He just said in verse 8, “By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me.”
It would be good if all of us were so composed and careful in the expression of our discouragements that we never said anything amiss. But that just isn’t the way we are. In the midst of the tumult of emotions, we’re not always careful with our words. So, he asks “Why?” It’s a legitimate question. He may not have asked the question with theological or linguistic precision, but if he proves in time that he didn’t mean that God had forgotten him, we will let that be words for the wind.
He Affirms God’s Sovereign Love
Verse 8: “By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” In verses 5 and 11, he calls God “my salvation [or Savior] and my God.” And even though he says it looks as if God has forgotten him, he never stops believing in the absolute sovereignty of God over all his adversity. So, at the end of verse 7, he says, “All Your breakers and Your waves have gone over me.”
In other words, all his crashing and tumultuous and oppressing and discouraging circumstances are the waves of God. He never loses this grip on the great truths about God. They are the ballast in his little boat of faith. They keep him from capsizing in the tumult of his emotions.
Oh, how many of you have learned this more deeply than me because of the waves that have broken over your lives. You’ve learned deeply that it’s no relief to say that God does not rule the wind and the waves. So, the psalmist affirms God’s sovereign love for him in and through all the troubles.
He Sings
Again, verse 8: “By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” This is not a song of jubilant hope. He doesn’t feel jubilant hope. That’s what he’s seeking – jubilant hope. But isn’t it amazing that he’s singing his prayer! Not many of us can compose songs when we’re discouraged and weeping day and night. That’s why a singable psalter is good to keep around – or a hymnbook with the whole array of emotions. For example, Isaac Watts wrote these verses to be sung:
How long wilt Thou conceal Thy face?
My God, how long delay?
When shall I feel those heav’nly rays
That chase my fears away?
How long shall my poor laboring soul
Wrestle and toil in vain?
Thy word can all my foes control
And ease my raging pain.
That’s not a jubilant song. But it is a song of faith. And it’s shaped by thinking and feeling with God in the Psalms.
He Preaches To His Own Soul
Fourth, the psalmist preaches to his own soul. Verse 5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” Oh, how crucial this is in the fight of faith. We must learn to preach the truth to ourselves. “How do you do that pastor?”
“Listen, self: If God is for you, who can be against you? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for you, how will He not also with Him graciously give you all things? Who shall bring any charge against you as God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for you. Who shall separate you from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:31–35 paraphrased)
He Remembers Past Experiences
Fifth, the psalmist remembers. He calls past experiences to mind. He remembers past corporate worship experiences. Verse 4: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: 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.”
Oh, how much could be said here about the importance of corporate worship in our lives. Don’t take these times together lightly. What we do at church is a real transaction with the living God. That’s why it pains me that we’re not presently able to be together. God means for these encounters with Him in corporate worship to preserve your faith now and in the way you remember them later. This is not simply engaging in nostalgia. He’s confirming his faith in the midst of turmoil and discouragement by remembering how real God was in corporate worship.
He Thirsts For God
Finally, the psalmist thirsts for God like a deer pants for the stream. Verses 1–2: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” What makes this so beautiful, and so crucial for us, is that he’s not thirsting mainly for relief from his threatening circumstances. He’s not thirsting mainly for escape.
It’s not wrong to want relief and to pray for it. It is sometimes right to pray for the defeat of enemies. But more important than any of that is God Himself. When we think and feel with God in the Psalms, this is the main result: we come to love God, and we want to see God and be with God and be satisfied in admiring and exulting in God.
So that’s a sermon for me, today. Perhaps there was something in there for you too. May the Lord increase our hunger and our thirst to see the face of God. And may He grant our desire through the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.