Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ - Part 4

Thank you very much for your welcome and for your being here. It's an honor to be in this pulpit that is shared by people of like mind and like heart. Before I read the text that I will speak from, let me give you three or four reasons for why I chose it. That might help you ponder whether it's relevant for you or not. First, when I was 34, I'm 61, I came to Bethlehem and was a totally green pastor. I had never pastored before. I had maybe preached 15 times in my life as a teacher. I had never done a funeral. I had done one wedding. I had never baptized anybody. I had never led anybody in communion. I had never dedicated a baby and they hired me anyway. And I was very anxious and those days were filled with insecurity and nervousness about whether I could do it. And this psalm that I'm going to speak from was my daily bread. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. That's found in both 42.5 and 43.5. So we'll go there in a few minutes. So reason number one was I fed on this psalm and it sustained me for several years. In fact, there was a big wall on the west side of Bethlehem Baptist Church that had no name on it. And as you drove down 8th Street leaving town, there was no indication what this building was. And so I said to the powers that be, let's put a big sign up there that simply says, Hope in God. And I don't want any effeminate little scrawl, big fat letters. And so they put a big Hope in God sign up there. And for years, the people in the neighborhood would say, oh, you go to the Hope in God church. It wasn't the name of the church. It was just the big one. And that's exactly what I wanted it to be known as. We're the people who are desperate and who hope in God. So reason number one is I love the message of this psalm because it worked for me and I hope it'll work for you to help you deal with those kinds of anxieties. Here's a second reason. Between biopsy and surgery last year, prostate cancer, this psalm was the second most important text that God used to sustain me. The first and most important was, You are not appointed for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we wake or sleep, we will live with him. That was number one. God gave me that one in the room when the doctor said, I think we better do a biopsy. And this one came next and lasted longer and was powerful. That's reason number two. Reason number three is that this psalm does, in fact, define the ultimate goal of life. It's big. So if you're wondering what you're on the planet for, there's no doubt about it. It's in here and you'll find out. And then the last reason was that it does give very practical steps that you can take when you feel distant from God as though he has forsaken you. So, open your Bibles, if you have one, to Psalm 43. And if you don't have one, that's okay. Just listen carefully. We'll read the whole psalm. It's only five verses long. Psalm 43. Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people. From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God. To God, my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Why are you downcast, 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. Let's pray. Father, I plead with you that you would open this truth from this psalm and teach your people important things that we need to know in order to live the life that you call us to live, to live in faith, to live in hope, to live in holiness, to live in courage, to live in love. So please come. Enable me to speak these truths in accord with your word, with the right kind of demeanor and spirit. Guard me from anything that would be misleading. May these friends be blessed. May they be strengthened. May they be empowered. And if any is feeling distant from you, forsaken by you, would you alert them that psalmists have known this and have ways of walking home and taking us with them. So come, help me now to be faithful to this text in Jesus' name. Amen. In Psalm 43 now, we see the ultimate goal of life and the practical steps you can take if you're distant from God or feel that way and feel that he has forsaken you. Notice that verse 1 describes what is going on in the psalmist's life, and verse 2 describes what is going on in the psalmist's soul. Verse 1, vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people. So there's people out there. This is not inside of him. This is out there. Defend me against these ungodly people from deceitful and unjust man. Deliver me. So he's got enemies, and they're making life hard for him. They're threatening him and making him miserable. There are all kinds of things that make us miserable. Some of them are out there, and some of them are in here. This is the verse that says there are some out there for this psalmist. Now, verse 2 describes what's going on in his soul. He says, For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? So the effect of these enemies has been that he feels rejected by God. Why have you rejected me? And he's crying and moaning and mourning all day long. Why do I go about mourning because of the enemy? Now, here's what's so remarkable. Clearly, this man is divided. He has a divided soul because he says, You're my refuge. You are the God in whom I take refuge. And then he says, Why have you rejected me? Well, look, if you read the Psalms, you know God doesn't reject those who take refuge in him. He does anything but reject those who take refuge in him. If you take refuge in God, he's your God. He stands with you and for you. So this man is a divided soul. Part of him is saying, You're my refuge, and part of him is saying, Why have you rejected me? He is a split man. Verse 2, You are the God in whom I take refuge. Next line, Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning? So part of his heart, it seems, is taking refuge in God, and part of it is feeling rejected by God. He's perplexed. He doesn't know how to figure out his circumstance. He doesn't know, If you're for me and if I'm taking refuge in you, why are these enemies having such an upper hand in my life? He seems to mean, Why do you turn your back on me? Why do you let the enemy make me miserable? You're my refuge. I fled to you a hundred times in my life. I fly to you now, and you've given me over to the scorn and the threat of my enemies. There's darkness all around me, and I'm going through the days mourning. I think that is not an uncommon Christian experience. Christian experience. A divided heart, a torn heart. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing. Ideally, it should never happen. I'm saying, though, not only does it happen, I'm saying it does happen to every believer sooner or later. A torn heart, a heart that says, You're my refuge. And the other part of the heart says, Where are you? That kind of experience is in the New Testament. For example, Mark 9, 24, the father says, I believe you. Help my unbelief. He's talking to Jesus, right? I believe you. Help my unbelief. Well, do you believe or don't you believe? And he's divided. He's divided. I believe you. Help my unbelief. Part of me believes. Part of me doesn't believe. Romans 7, 19, For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. And my guess is that many of you know that experience of a divided heart. So what I want to look at is how this man deals with that. What practical steps does he take against a divided heart? That's what this psalm mainly is about. The grace of God has kept him from going so far as that he can't fight. He can. He can take steps. He does. He begins the psalm by crying out, Vindicate me, O God. Defend my cause. So he's crying out against his circumstances. Vindicate me. Change these circumstances. Have mercy upon me. Defeat the enemies, O God. Vindicate me. I'm on your side. I've taken refuge in you. Settle it. Defeat my enemies for me. Bring me deliverance. Bring me rescue. Bring me healing. Whatever I need, bring it to me. I'm taking refuge in you. However, that's not the main thing he does in this psalm. And the reason I say something more is happening and it's deeper is because a purely natural man would pray like that. You don't have to be born again. You don't have to be a Christian to say, God, slay my enemies. What unbeliever wouldn't want to pray that? So that he is praying for his own vindication over against his opponents is no sign of his godliness. It may be godly. I assume it is. But it may not be. And therefore, it's not the deepest thing that's going on. The things we have in common with unbelievers are not the deepest things. And any unbeliever would cry out, if there's a God, slay my enemy. Get me out of here. That's not the deepest thing that's going on here. It's not spiritual work per se. There are other things happening here, two other things. He does two things that only born-again people do, two things that only people who are inhabited by and enabled by the Holy Spirit do. And that's what I want to know. I want to know what as a believer in the living God, follower of Jesus Christ, do I do when I find my heart divided, part of it saying, I'm taking my refuge in you, and part of it saying, Why have you rejected me? I want to know what I should do. How do I make progress with that? How do I move away from that and solve that? That's here. And he does two things. The first one we'll spend almost all of our time on. And the last one I'll just mention briefly at the end. Verses 3 and 4 describe what he does. Let's read them. He cries out to God, Send your light, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Now that's an amazing prayer. It really is. When you read that and you ponder all those words, you see very rich spiritual experience in that prayer. You see vocabulary that is permeated by God and a relationship with God. You see a sequence of thought and a God-centeredness to his goal. You see an acquaintance with the sanctuary. You see an emotional outcome anticipated. This reveals this man is a deep saint. This man knows God. He's had dealings with God. And I find that tremendously encouraging, because this is the man that's saying, Why have you rejected me? You'd be able to pray like that? Let's read it again. Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill, to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of my God, the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. How can you be a man like that and say, Why have you rejected me? It happens. It just happens. It has happened to you, and it will happen again. So what does he do? Notice, there's not a whiff in verses 3 and 4 any longer of praying for vindication from his enemies. The enemies are not the issue anymore. The issue is here. Something greater is at stake now. There's much more important victory to be had than victory over the enemies. It's a great thing when you get victory over an enemy. A disaster, a person, cancer. But whether you get victory over another person or victory over a disaster or victory over cancer is quite irrelevant to the main victories in life. That's not the main issue in life. There is a victory that's far more important, and you can lose all those others and win this one. You can lose the battle with cancer. You can lose the battle with a disaster. You can lose the battle with another person and totally triumph on what matters, and that's what this is about. That's what this is about. So there are four stages. I want to show you four stages of what he does and just plead with you to do these things, to win the victory that really matters. Number one, he prays that God would send light and truth to guide him. He wants guidance. Verse three, Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. So he's confessing to God, I need leadership. I need guidance in my life. Why? Why would you pray a thing like that? What would be your situation if you said to God, Send light! The answer is, you're in the dark. This man feels surrounded by darkness, and he's pleading that light would dawn in his life, and the reason I think he adds the word truth, send your light and your truth, is because truth is what you see when light comes into your life. Truth is what you see when there's light. If there's not light, you see error. You don't know what you see. I don't know what that is in front of me. I might trip over it and fall, but when light goes on, reality happens. You see reality. Truth is out there. And so he says, send light, and let there be truth here. I don't want to be in darkness anymore. So here's this amazingly deep saint. Feels abandoned by God, and must feel in the darkness because he's crying out for light. How many people come to me for prayer, pointing to their head like this, saying, Pastor, it's all up here. I know the doctrines. I've been in this church a long time. And then they go like this, but it's not here. This happens all the time. I know that God is true. I know that he loves me. I know that the promises never fail. He'll never leave me. He'll forsake me. But I don't feel it. That's what this man evidently is experiencing. God is my refuge. Why have you forsaken me? I'm not feeling your presence at all. I'm feeling dark. He knows the cause of this darkness. He's blind to something. That's what the darkness is. He's blind to something. So when he's saying, send your light, like some of you were here for the seminar this morning, there are eyes in the heart, according to Ephesians 1:17. There are eyes in the heart. This man's heart eyes are not seeing. They're being darkened. And he's asking, send light, illuminate so that I can see what's true, meaning feel and savor and experience what I've said is true. You're my refuge. I fly to you. Why have you forsaken me? So send light and guide me out of darkness into light where I can see glory and my heart can join with my head in saying and knowing you're my refuge. That's what he's pleading for. It's like Paul prayed. Isn't it amazing? Ephesians 1:18 is a prayer for Christians. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened to know what is your hope. He's praying for Christians that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened. This is the psalmist's experience. Paul knows that's where we live. Paul knows we go in and out of seasons of darkness when the things that we affirm strongly we don't have emotional resonance with. He's praying for spiritual light, not physical light. Physical light helps the physical eyes. Spiritual light helps the spiritual eyes. That's what he's praying for. He's not praying that he'd get victory over his enemies anymore. He's praying about this battle right here. This is the one that matters. He can die and get killed by his enemy. He can die of cancer. He can die of a disaster. But if this one, if this one, if the victory is gotten here and I see light, that's okay. That's okay. That's the battle that he wants to win. Oh God, he prays, send me light. And then he says, and let there be truth. That's number one. He knows he needs guidance out of darkness. He wants divine light to shine on his heart so that darkness is banished, truth is seen, and all that he is affirming, you are my God, I'm taking refuge in you, to be felt by his heart. And he no longer says, where are you? Why have you rejected me? Number two, second thing he does. He goes or he asks God to bring him to God's holy dwelling. That light and that truth that comes is going to lead him to God's holy dwelling, the sanctuary, the altar of God. Let's read that. Middle of verse three. Let them, light and truth, let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God. Amazing. He knows where he needs to go. And he's praying for light and truth to dawn so that he gets there. Namely, first in general the sanctuary and then very specifically one part of the sanctuary, the altar. What happens at the altar? Animals are killed at the altar and offered to God for sinners who come to the altar. And so from our standpoint, on this side of the cross, you cannot not read this psalm without, as a Christian saying, take me to the cross. Lead me to the cross. Let your light and your truth come and may they lead me to the sanctuary, to the cross, to the high priest, to the sacrifice, Jesus. Because there my sins will be covered. It's not a good thing to feel distant from God when He's not distant from you. We need forgiveness for that and many other things in our lives. So this side of the cross, we know what that kind of prayer means. Hebrews 13:10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. In other words, Christians now know that Jesus Christ has become the altar, He's become the high priest, He's become the sacrifice, so that when we read, I will go to the altar of God, that means I will go to Christ, my altar, my sacrifice, my high priest, and I will find there forgiveness. That's number two. So you pray first that there be light dispelling your darkness. That light lead you to the sanctuary of God, the altar who is Jesus Christ where the slain animal, or in this case the slain Savior, provides cleansing and forgiveness for our sin. Third, the third stage in His progress towards where He needs to be. He says, I want this light and this truth not just to lead me to the altar, but to lead me to God as my exceeding joy. See that? Verse 4, Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. The final goal of life. Remember I said this psalm talks about the ultimate goal of your existence? Here it is. The ultimate goal of our existence is not the forgiveness of sins. It's not the altar. The altar, the cross, the death of Jesus, is a means to the ultimate goal of your life. And the ultimate goal of your life is having received light, having been brought to the altar, having your sins forgiven, having the darkness dispelled, to find God as your exceeding joy. No longer all His substitutes, which is one of the reasons why we often feel so distant from God. We have so many substitutes for God. It's no surprise that God's going to begin to feel distant when other things are satisfying our heart, besides Him. So He's crying out, Oh, bring me to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. Now there's a little thing here you can't see in English. And I'm always hesitant to pull linguistic rank on you by telling you something about the Hebrew, but I'm going to do it anyway, because it's such good news. It's so amazing. Here's the literal rendering of God, my exceeding joy. It is God, the gladness of my rejoicing. It's two words. God, the gladness of my rejoicing. Now what would that mean? You can see why they translate it exceeding joy, because what does that mean? God, the gladness of my rejoicing. I'm going to make a suggestion to you. You just weigh this, ponder this, look for it in other parts of the Bible, see if this might be so. When I read the phrase, get me to the God who is the gladness of my rejoicing, I think that's His way of saying there are many good things in the world that make us happy. My rejoicing. My wife makes me happy. My daughter makes me happy. Preaching makes me happy. Friends make me happy. Visiting Stew Weaver makes me happy. I'm hungry right now. Eating later will make me happy. Is that all idolatry? It might be. It might be. Does it have to be? No, not if God is the gladness of your rejoicing, which I take to mean something like in all of my rejoicing, in your listening to me now, in my wife's flying out here to be with me, in the food I anticipate afterwards, in the friendship at Stew's house, in all of that rejoicing, if God is not at the core of it, it's empty and unspiritual and useless rejoicing in the end. Now that's a very radical thing to say because it says the gladness of sex should have God at the center of it. The gladness of eating pizza should have God at the center of it. The gladness of a vacation in the mountains or at the shore should have God and His beauty at the center of it so that God is the core gladness of all my gladness. So the psalmist is saying, banish my darkness, bring me to the altar of God, forgive all my sins, and bring me all the way home to the God who now is the core of all my gladness. I don't want to be glad without God. I don't want any competing gladness in my life that is not essentially gladness in God. God created friendship, God created marriage, God created food, God created sex, God created mountains, God created beaches, and He didn't do it just to tempt us with idolatry. He did it so that those moments of horizontal delighting could become worship. As we render thanks and as we see beautiful echoes or reflections of the nature of God in the beauty of the world and the beauty of people, and He just means for us to be so radically God-saturated that these other things are not competing with God. They're expressing God. I think that's a little bit of what he probably means when he says, take me to God, the gladness of my rejoicing. That's step three. Here's the last one. The final stage in verse four of what he's praying for and moving toward is prayer that this light and truth will lead him to express praise to God. I will praise you with the lyre, L-Y-R-E, with the lyre, O God, my God. The apex of your joy is when it finds expression. Don't you know from your own experience that if a good thing happens to you, could be a perfectly natural thing, could be a high spiritual thing, a good thing happens to you, makes you very happy. If you go off by yourself and just close in on yourself and it's just you and that blessing, it goes bad. But if you let it out, talk to somebody. I mean, you all know the impulses. You turn a bend in a mountain road, traveling with a friend. Turn a bend in a mountain road and a vast expanse of snow-capped ridges stretches before you, takes your breath away. If you don't say something to the person next to you in the car, you're sick. You say things like, wow, look at that. That's all. That's it. That's kind of California poetry. Oh, wow, look at the moon. It's not exactly Shakespeare, but it's the best most people can do. The words are quite irrelevant here. I'm talking about when goodness and beauty and glory lands on you, they come, it comes to its consummation when it gets expressed and shared. And so he terminates his prayer on, I will praise you with the lyre. Oh, God, my God. C.S. Lewis taught me this more than anybody outside the Bible. He said, we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. That's very profound. You think what we're doing when we sing in services like this is simply responding to all the goodness of God to us? No. That for sure. But when you give vent to the goodness of God in your life, the joy in the goodness is completed, not just identified and expressed. And we all know that. I remember at Fuller Seminary 1968 to 71. This is a silly little illustration, but maybe it'll stick. I was reading the cartoons in the New Yorker every week when it came out. I'd go to that shelf in the library where the magazines were. I'd take down the New Yorker, and I would open it. I would just go from cartoon to cartoon because they were, you know, kind of sophisticated and cool and funny. They were funny. Now, there's nothing more frustrating than to read an absolutely hilarious cartoon in a library all by yourself, standing in a corner in stacks with nobody to say, look at the cartoon. Isn't that funny? I used to watch television, and when a comedian would come on, now, if I named the comedians I watched, half of you would not even know who they are. You wouldn't know Red Skelton or Red Buttons or, you know, just wouldn't know any of those old crazy people. But when they came on, I would go get my mother and make her sit with me so I would laugh harder because when my mother laughed and I laughed together, our two laughters fed off of each other and we just enjoyed it so much more. Those were little windows for me onto what's going on here very profoundly. This man wants light to come to guide him out of darkness to the altar of God, to God the gladness of all his joy which reaches its consummation in shared expression toward God in a community. That's what he does. His divided heart has undertaken to do something, namely, pray, send out your light and your truth, let them lead me, let them bring me to your holy hill, to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Now, that's the first thing he does and I said there were two and I said I would only mention the second one. So I'll mention it now. Maybe I'll read one quote from a book about it so if you want to read the book, you can go get it. The second thing he does is the last verse. Verse 5. Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? He's frustrated with himself. Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Now, what's the difference? You tell me. You don't have to say it out loud. Think. What's the difference between what he's doing in verses 3 and 4 and what he's doing in verse 5? I'll ask you. I will. Tell me. Who's he talking to in verse 5? What? Himself. Why are you downcast, O my soul? He's talking to his soul. Hey, soul. Reminds you of Bill Cosby, right? Soul, why are you downcast? He's talking to himself. Why are you downcast? Why are you in turmoil? And now he's commanding himself. Hope in God, soul, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So my closing second suggestion to you is not just do verses 3 and 4. Do that. Let's join hands, and in our dark moments do that, but learn to preach to yourself. Preach to yourself the gospel. This morning, casting about for encouragement in God's word and strength, not only did I read in Mark 8, which I quoted at the beginning of the seminar this morning, I also read in Psalm 90, verse 17, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands. Oh, God, establish the work of our hands. Now, that's a prayer, and I had worked long and hard on those messages. I had the work of my hands. I held them up like this. I held up my manuscript. I held it up like this, and I said, God, establish the work of my hands today. Is that all I should do at that moment? No. I should also do verse 5, because if I believe that God hears that prayer and that there's a promise in it for me, I should preach to myself at this point. I should say, tired, lazy, unbelieving, doubting self, he's gonna establish the work of your hands. Believe him, soul, because if I'm not preaching to myself, somebody is, namely the devil, and he's not saying that. The devil's saying, he's not gonna establish the work of your hands. There's just so much pride in you. There's so much fear in you, so much anxiety in you, so much distraction in you, so much weariness in you. This is gonna bomb. That's the message you're gonna get. So you don't just counter that message. You do. You don't just counter that message with prayer. Yes, prayer. Yes. And yes, promises from God. But just think of the difference between establish thou the work of my hand, because if you stop right there, little voices could be saying, you're not trusting him, and he's not gonna do it. So you add to that prayer preaching to yourself, just like verse 5. And you say, soul, you have prayed. He has promised. Now, soul, believe this. Count on this. Relax in this. Enjoy this. He's coming through for you. That's the way you preach to yourself. Now, the person you should read on this as I close is Martin Lloyd-Jones. And the book is Spiritual Depression. Maybe one of the most important books he ever wrote. This is the London pastor who died in 1982, I believe. And I'll read you one quote from his book, and then I'll close in prayer, because it illustrates the second strategy of fighting the divided heart so well. Here's what he wrote. 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? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You've not originated them, but they are talking to you. They bring back the problems of yesterday. Somebody's talking. Who's talking to you? Yourself is talking to you. Now, this man's treatment, Psalm 42 and 43, this man's treatment was this. Instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. Why are you downcast, O my soul? He asks. His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, Self, listen for a moment. I'll speak to you. End quote. That's Martin Lloyd-Jones. He's a medical doctor and very wise about the relationship between spiritual and physical things and depression and discouragement. And he knows what he's talking about. The entire book is an exposition of that verse. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him. Talk to yourself with biblical truth. Preach the gospel to yourself. So those are the two things that the psalmist with the divided heart, on the one hand, he's saying, You're my refuge. I fly to you. On the other hand, he's saying, Where are you? You've rejected me. And to remedy that divided heart where he's got things pretty right in his head, he feels in the darkness, he's praying, Send your light. Guide me out of this darkness. Lead me to the altar. Forgive my sins. Show yourself as my exceeding joy. Bring my mouth to praise. And then he starts preaching at himself. And that's what we should do. Father in heaven, across this room, there are hundreds of folks, namely all of us, who experience this divided self from time to time. Some more than others. I pray that with this psalmist's help, we would bring our hearts into union. Unite our hearts to fear your name. Unite our hearts to delight in your name. Unite our hearts to trust your name. Unite our hearts so that we feel and see and savor what our heads know about your truth and your grace and your love and your patience and your mercy and your justice and your goodness. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.