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Sermons and messages from Pastor Jason White and others at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Tyler, TX
Have you ever been in that place in life where you have felt so low, so sad, so overwhelmed, and in so much despair that it just felt like the ground underneath you was sinking? Maybe as if the ground wasn't even there, like you were in the ocean, and the waves just kept hitting you and hitting you, and there's nothing underneath you to catch you, and so you just find yourself sinking, and there is nothing that you can do about it. It is a dark and a lonely place to be in in life when we hit those times, and many of us have been there. Probably all of us, to some degree, have been there in that place. Maybe some of you might even say that's where you're at Today, the psalmist in Psalm 42, when he wrote this psalm, was in that place. He was in that place where he felt like he was drowning. That there was, he was in despair. I mean, he uses that kind of language in the psalm where he says, "Deep calls to deep, and the roar of your waterfalls, your your waves, and your breakers have swept over me." I mean, you just get the picture that he is drowning in life, and there is nothing that he can do about it. He uses words and language like, "Why, my soul, are you so downcast. Why are you so sad? Why are you so overwhelmed with grief right now? Why are you so disturbed? Why are you in such turmoil and despair? This is where he is at, and you're going to see that through the language that he continues to use, but but the good news, the good news is that through this psalm, the Lord is going to show us the way out, the way out of those times of downcastness and times of turmoil and the times that we feel like we're drowning and there is nothing that we can do. So let's jump in and see how the psalmist starts off. He says, "As the deer pants for the for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God." Now I don't know if you're like me, but some of you, when you hear that language right there, it could be because you've read this psalm before, or it could be that you're as old as I am, and if not older, and you remember that there was a song, a worship song, that came out based on this psalm about the deer who panteth for the water, and if you're old enough to remember that song, you may remember that it has this this solemnness to it, this this tranquility, if you will. It's just a reflective. There's it's kind of a calm, peaceful song, and you just picture your head and this deer just kind of walking along gracefully and smoothly, looking for a drink of water. That is not the imagery that the psalmist is painting here. And so, if your mind goes to that place, get that out of your head for the moment, because the image that he is trying to get us to see is that of a deer that is panting for streams of water? To pant means that this deer is so exhausted that he or she is so parched that he is gasping. It is a it is a life or death situation. If this deer does not find this water quickly, he is going to die. I mean, this is a matter of survival, and that's what the psalmist is trying to help us see about his own life. It is a matter of survival. He is desperately gasping for life. It is a life or death survival situation here. For the deer, it's water. Literally, he's he's panting for water. He needs the water in order to survive. But for the the psalmist, he says it's his soul that is panting for God. He is thirsting for God Himself, and that's what he gets into next. He says, "My soul thirsts. It's it it pants in the same way that a deer thirsts for water. My soul, my soul is thirsty. I mean, so parched. I am I am desperately longing to drink of God Himself. If. You will notice that his soul is not just thirsting for God, but for the living God.
This is not a a God who is made out of wood or stone. He's not an idol. He's he's the living. He's the the breathing, living God. The one who is life itself, because He is the one who is life itself. He's the only one, the only one that can actually quench His thirst, this this longing in His soul, the grief. that he is experiencing in this moment. The same thing applies for us today. You and I can try to satisfy the the longings of our souls with a number of things or even people in this world, but what we must recognize, just like we're seeing in the psalmist life already in the first couple of verses here, the only thing, the only one who will ever fully and completely satisfy our souls, is the one who is life itself, The living God of the universe. Notice that because that is true, He asks the question. Then, since my soul is thirsting for Him, He's the living God. He's the only one that can quench my thirst. Then, then when can I go and meet with this God to satisfy my thirst, this longing in my soul? Now, notice He doesn't say where. He knows where He can go and meet God. He's wondering when He can't go and do it right now. He's wondering when the time is going to finally come when he can go and meet with God. Remember that we're looking at the Psalms, and the Psalms are found in the Old Testament of our Bibles. Meaning, this is the time that the people of God were under the Old Covenant before Jesus and His finished work on the cross, and we know that people went to the temple to meet God. That God Himself made His dwelling place in the temple, in the holy of holies of the temple, in the deepest, most inner part of the temple. He dwelt there, and He had these festivals where the the people of God were to approach the throne of God, the temple together through these festivals that they would celebrate, where they would remember who God is, and they would offer sacrifices to Him, and and they would go to meet with Him together as His people to have their thirst quenched by him, because he is the one who is life itself. And so the psalmist is in a a position in life and a place in life when he cannot go and participate in these festivals. He cannot be with the people of God in the presence of God, and his soul is longing for God, and he's crying out, "When? When am I going to finally be able to go in the same way that I used to? Because it's destroying him to the depths of his soul. It is destroying his life. I mean, look at the way he continues to describe the situation that he's in. He says, "My tears have been my food all day and night." While people say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" They're mocking him. They know that he is a believer. That he's part of the Lord's people, and he's in this situation, and they're going. Where's your God now? Have you you ever been in one of those places where people know that you're a Christian? They know that you believe in God, and your life is headed in such a direction where it's as if He is not there, and things are going so terribly, and you're so downcast and so dejected that even those people around you who don't believe in God are in the same place, going, "Where is your God in this situation for you?" And there's a little bit of a mockingness to it. Even it hurts when people around you are saying that, and when you're feeling that that may even be true in your own life. And look at the language that he uses before he even talks about that. He says, "My tears, my tears have been my food day and night." I mean, this is an all-consuming grief. The way that he is talking about this, have you? Ever experienced an an all-consuming grief is a lonely and a dark place to be. This may even be hinting that he's he's not even eating.
I mean, have you ever been so overwhelmed with grief, so distraught and in such despair that you can't even eat because of the situation that you are in. I've been there. I'm sure that you've been there too. It is not a fun place to be. And as he sits in this grief. He's crying out to God, wondering when and if he can meet with Him again. He remembers the times when he used to be able to do that. His mind begins to go back there, and that is what we see next. He says, "These things I remember as I pour out my soul. How I used to go. What I remember is 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. Throng isn't the language that we use much today, but that, of course, as you know, is a host of people, a number of people traveling together. It would be again the picture of them traveling, journeying towards the temple, making their way into the people of God together as His people, going to meet with their God, and and as they know they're going to meet with Him because there's there's such an opportunity to experience Him in that moment. Then there's there's shouts of joy as they approach the temple, as they approach meeting with Him. They're they're praising whenever they are on their way together, and his mind is is going back to these places where where there was so much joy when he was with God's people, and they were entering into God's presence to meet there with him because again he was the ultimate satisfaction. He was the only one who could quench the longing that they were experiencing in the depths of their souls, and so he remembers those times. They were they were good times, but again, he can't be there now, and that causes him to continue to use the same language that we already referenced earlier. Why, my soul, are you so downcast? Why so disturbed within me? The word the word downcast here means discouraged. It means dejected. It means to be in total despair, right? I mean, this is the place that he is in. We get a picture of that when we read the New Testament of our Bibles. When we read the Gospels in Jesus during the last week of his life, the night before he went to the cross. This is the same word that's translated downcast. So this was originally written, excuse me, in in Hebrew, but then they went back later and translated the old covenant, the Old Testament, into Greek, so that people could understand. It's called the Septuagint, and when they translated it in Greek, this same word downcast here is the same word that Jesus uses in the New Testament of our Bibles in Matthew 2638 when he's praying in the garden and he says my soul same word here as where is here my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow he says to the point of death like I am so overwhelmed with sorrow. It's to the point of death. The word translated sorrow in the New Testament there is the same word, downcast here, and so we get a sense. You know what Jesus is going through. You know what he's going through. You've read it a number of times, and we every Easter and Good Friday we begin to cover those kind of things, and he's dropped sweats of blood. Right? I mean, he is in total despair and overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, and that's the way the psalmist is feeling too. The same way that Jesus was feeling. One of the things that I think we we see when we recognize this in the old covenant, and then we recognize that Jesus even went through this, and he's described as our high priest in the book of Hebrews. That we go, okay, if Jesus himself was downcast, if he was so. Overwhelmed to the point of death in the way that the psalmist was experiencing here, in a way that we as normal people would experience in our own lives, and Jesus has gone through it too. Hebrews tells us that He's able to sympathize with us from personal experience.
It's not just some God sitting up there that we try to get closer and closer to. We're talking about the living God who wrapped Himself in flesh and came here and experienced this overwhelming grief that you and I experience in our own lives sometimes, where it feels like we're sinking and we're drowning and we are going to die, and our Lord and Savior has been there Himself. And when you walk through it, you can turn your attention to Him not as someone who's aloof and sitting far away, but someone who's been in it, who knows what it feels like, who can sit up next to you and say, "I know," and my soul hurts with you in this because I've been there, and I know how much you're grieving in this moment, and I hope that as we remember that we're able to experience the living God wrap His arms around us in these moments that we find ourselves in such turmoil and despair because He's been through it and He is with us in it too. Now that He's described this and asking this question, and we see it though, and the second half of this verse is the key. If you have missed everything that I've said, or you've just caught pieces, or beginning to fall asleep here. This is where you want to sit up and you begin to pay attention a little bit more. Because notice the turn right here. After saying, "Why so downcast? Why so disturbed?" Look what he says: "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. Notice that when he says, "Put your hope here," he's not talking to someone else. We don't have any reason to believe that there's someone else that he's preaching to there. He is preaching to himself. He's saying to himself, "Put your hope in God, and then He makes it personal. I will yet praise Him. Notice my Savior, my God. He's my rescuer. Yes, I'm in the situation of overwhelming despair. I can't. I'm drowning. There's nothing underneath me to catch me. But He's my savior. He's my help, my refuge, if you will, that we studied last week, an ever-present help in time of need. This is who he is. He begins to preach to himself, and this is what you and I need to notice today. That when we are in these kind of moments and these situations of overwhelming despair, and there's nothing that we can do about the situation, we turn our attention away from the things going on in our lives, and we focus on the hope that we have in Him, and we choose to praise Him because He is our Savior and He is our living God. One of the keys in this is to remember Him and to remember His goodness, to remember His faithfulness. The things that you may not be feeling in the moment, but you know to be true because you've experienced them in the past, and that's what he says next. Verse six, he says, "My soul is downcast within me. Therefore, as a result of feeling this way, in being in this position, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mazar. So this is giving us the indication that he's far away from Jerusalem and the temple, and and he's not able to enter in. But he's going to remember the times that he was near to remember who God actually is, even though he feels these things, he's not going to let his feelings be the one that dictate truth to him. He's going to remember the truth about who God is, that He is good, that He is faithful, and this is what you and I must do as well. We must preach the gospel to ourselves when we find ourselves in these situations. We must make sure that we we don't let our feelings, who will lie to us, by the way, tell us what the truth is about who God is. May not feel his love. We may not feel his presence. We may not feel his goodness.
But feelings can lie to us, and so we must remember the truth that even in the situations where we don't feel like he's good, or that he's faithful, that he is good, and that he is faithful, and that we can put our hope in him. Now, here is the deal: I don't know if you've experienced this in your own life. We're going to see experience in his. I've certainly done it in mine. But there have been times when I recognize this, and I know I can't let my feelings do that to me, and I've got to renew my mind to the truth. But then, as I begin to renew my mind to the truth, all of a sudden, rather than being lifted out of it, I feel like I'm pulled all the way right back down into it. Anybody ever been there? Well, that's what happens in his life. He just declares that he's remembering the faithfulness and the goodness of his life. And then, verse seven, this is where we read what we read earlier: deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have swept over me. This picture of him, him drowning here. I mean, he's just he's he's drowning in this particular moment. And and there's helpless grief. It's this state of depression that he's in. There is no way out. But here's here's what I want us to see, because the enemy, who is the one responsible for using our feelings to lie to us about the truth of God, if we begin to remind ourselves of the truth of God, we'll look for another way in. And sometimes it'll be through the same things that He's doing, but the other thing is, it'll be just a little bit of a side door of the same kind of things, and it doesn't jump out at us here in the language I don't think that you and I are reading. But one of the things that Christopher Ashe and his commentary brings out is the imagery that he's painting here. The words, the language that he is using, is reminiscent of being associated with God's wrath and His judgment, He explains it way better than I can. So, can I just read to you what He what He says about this? He says the word "deep" in Hebrew speaks of the terrifying great deep of Genesis one two and the entrances to Sheol. It is a word with dark connotations. Deep calls to deep suggest a darkly liturgical calling to and fro, as as one abyss calls to another abyss to drown this believer in the waters of judgment. He says, "The roar of your waterfalls is an allusion to the windows of heaven thrown open in the floods of Noah's day. Together with the breakers and waves are images of God's judgment. Billows upon billow they have gone over me until I feel I must descend to Sheol under the burden of sins. And then he sums it up and says, "This believer understands that what he is enduring is God's wrath against sins." Now he is in a situation where what he is feeling and sensing is appropriate. This is the old covenant. This is before Jesus. This is a time when there were temporary sacrifices that had to be made for the covering of sins in order to be able to approach and meet with God. And and not only were there temporary sacrifices, there was one main sacrifice day, the Day of Atonement, where the high priest would enter the temple and into the Holy of Holies to make sacrifices for the the covering of people's sins. And if the psalmist could not be there, then he was not able to participate and experience the covering of his sins in the way that he had in the past. And our God is a holy God, and He is a just God. And so, if you can't go and experience the temporary covering of your sins in that way, and they're standing in between you and a holy and a just God, then guess what? You're going to experience his wrath, his judgment, and this is what he finds himself experiencing in those moments, and this is the way that Satan may try to do what is doing, what is going on here in even our lives today.
And so, as I mentioned, we're experiencing this overwhelming grief. We're remembering God's goodness and His faithfulness, and we're beginning to get kind of pulled out of those things. And Satan whispers in our ear, "Yeah, but do you remember all of those things that you did just last week? Do you remember those things that you were doing last night? Do you remember all the times you said?". That you wouldn't do that thing ever, ever again, and then you did it again, and then you've done it again, and you've done it again, and you've done it again. Don't you feel God's wrath? Don't you feel His judgment upon you right now, and the separation from those things? And all of a sudden, you begin to feel the weight of shame that Satan has placed on you because of your sins. The thing that we must remember here is that our High Priest, Jesus, the High Priest, capital H, capital P, that He made a one-time sacrifice for all sins of all time, and when he did, the curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two. And so today, when we're remembering the goodness and the faithfulness of God, and Satan comes to attack us when we're coming out of that position of of despair and overwhelming grief and and sadness and sorrow, and he's trying to hit us with the wrath and judgment of God. We can renew our minds to the truth that our High Priest has not just covered our sins, but He has removed them as far as the east is from the west. This is what he's experiencing in this moment, and we're going to continue to though. Okay, he was there. He was pulled, remembering up. He's pulled back in. Watch it; it's going to happen one more time. I mean, and that that happens multiple times in our own lives as well. The very next verse, right by day the Lord directs His love. At night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. And so He's feeling this judgment and this wrath and the sin barrier between Him. But He's reminded of the Lord's covenant love and and His faithfulness and goodness to His people to provide and rescue and save in some kind of way, and so he's he's pulled out. He's pulled back in. He's pulling back out, and then he goes right back in in the very next verse. And look at this. I mean, this is the bottom of the bottom. All of a sudden, it feels like right. He says, "I say to God, my rock." And you see that, and you go, "Oh, it's about to be positive again, right here. Oh no! Why have you forgotten me? I mean, you've been in those places before where you've got God. Why have you forgotten me? Like you feel like God is no longer even with you in this moment. You can't feel Him. Look at the language. Why must I go about mourning? Why must I go about oppressed by the enemy? Look at this language. My bones suffer mortal agony. Have you ever been in such an overwhelming grief? It hurts all the way down into your bones. You feel. I mean, it's just total despair as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" And so again, he's he's in this place. He's remembering, and then he feels the judgment again. Oh, but God's covenant love. Oh, but now he's right back in it, and is just this attack. I mean, the enemy never stops. He is there to steal, to kill, and destroy, and he does the same thing in our lives today. And when he comes at us, and we start feeling the same way, like God, why have you forgotten me? Why do I feel so oppressed by the enemy. It's in those moments where, again, we must preach the truth to ourselves that my God will never leave me and my God will never forsake me. We must preach the truth to ourselves that there is no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus. We must say, who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No.
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We preach the truth to ourselves. We do not let our feelings say, "Well, I feel this way, so this must be what's true of me." I feel this way, so this must be what's true of God. We tell our feelings the truth. We preach the truth to our feelings in these. Particular moments, which is what he finally comes back and does as we end today. He says again, same thing earlier. 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. When our soul is downcast and in turmoil, we declare, "I put my hope in God," and we say, "I will yet praise Him because He is my Savior and my God." Now, we. We've said all along, all along, third weekend, that these psalms were not written just to individuals; it was for corporate worship. So there is certainly an aspect where we can remember these things and preach the truth to our feelings when we are alone, but there's a sense that what the psalmist is crying out and what he's longing for. Guess what? You and I have in Jesus, and we have each other, and we get to gather together every single Sunday to not just remind ourselves about these things in our own individual walks, but remind each other. Like sometimes the grief is so overwhelming, like we're in such despair that I can't speak to my feelings loud enough. But when I show up with God's people and they're speaking the truth into me over and above my feelings, then God is at work in and through them to do something about the situation that I'm in here, and so there is a corporate aspect where we come together to remember together His goodness, to remember and experience His power in the present, and to remember that He is at work through others to bring us hope for tomorrow, and so as we've done each and every single week, I'm going to go ahead and invite you to stand because we are going to declare this together. This is a psalm that was meant for the people of God to declare together, and so I want to invite you to declare it along with me, and then we'll sing our song of response. Are we ready? As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 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. 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. My soul is downcast within me; therefore, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, the Mount or from Mount Mizar, deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls and your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs His love; at night His song is with me. A prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my Rock, why have you forgotten Me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God? 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.
Lord, we declare that together today, You are our Savior, You are our God, and we have even more reason to be able to declare that today because of Jesus and what it is that He's come to accomplish through His finished work on the cross, and because He's taken all of our sins to the cross, and because you rose Him from the dead, then the power of sin and death has been defeated. We get to live in complete forgiveness if we put our faith and trust in Him as our Lord and Savior, and that's what we've come together to do today to thank you for our salvation, for being our God, for our forgiveness, for all that we have in Christ, and so in our final moments of worship together, would you use us to give you all praise, all glory, and all honor? We love you, and we pray for anyone who's here today, who's yet to take that step of salvation, receive that gift of forgiveness in their lives, that you would lead them to open up their hearts and minds to receive your gift by putting their faith in you as their Lord and as their Savior today. And we ask it and pray it all in Jesus' name, Amen.