The Bible’s Main Road Out of Discouragement
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | We are focusing on Psalm 77 for a few weeks on the podcast.
00:00:08.000 | It's a discouraged psalm written by a discouraged psalmist who writes, for example, in verse 4,
00:00:14.000 | speaking to God, "You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak."
00:00:22.000 | Painful.
00:00:24.000 | He seems to be enduring a season of discouragement, and as we begin this new year,
00:00:29.000 | maybe you are carrying a discouragement in your own life.
00:00:33.000 | If so, it's normal. It's normal.
00:00:37.000 | Discouragements like this are, Pastor John will say, typical Christian life.
00:00:43.000 | They're common, even at the start of a new year.
00:00:46.000 | And in those discouragements, we need our Bibles even more.
00:00:50.000 | Psalm 77 reminds us why daily Bible reading needs to remain our priority in the dark seasons.
00:00:57.000 | Pastor John will remind us that our daily Bible reading is about habit, head, heart happening.
00:01:02.000 | Four things. The conviction to do it, number one.
00:01:05.000 | The discipline of getting truth into our heads, number two.
00:01:08.000 | The work of getting that truth from our head into our heart, number three.
00:01:11.000 | And then finally, number four, sticking to realistic practices that will make daily Bible reading possible.
00:01:17.000 | Today we look at point number two.
00:01:19.000 | Getting truth into our heads, even when life hurts.
00:01:24.000 | Here's Pastor John to explain in his New Year's Sermon in 2000 on Psalm 77.
00:01:29.000 | Here he is.
00:01:31.000 | I think of my preaching that way, even though I'm talking to you.
00:01:35.000 | My whole concept of preaching is this is done before God.
00:01:38.000 | Just like Paul says in 2 Corinthians, this is done toward God.
00:01:42.000 | This is worship of God, what I'm doing right now.
00:01:45.000 | And if you understood that better, you'd respond a lot more than you do, verbally.
00:01:52.000 | I'll work on that this year. We'll try to teach a little about meaning "Amen, yes."
00:01:59.000 | Why don't you try to say it, "Amen." Say it.
00:02:01.000 | Amen.
00:02:02.000 | See, that's not so hard.
00:02:03.000 | I don't want any artificiality or things outside your real self, but there are times in praying when a little "mm-hmm" wouldn't hurt.
00:02:20.000 | That's not in the manuscript here. Let's see.
00:02:25.000 | So this is a prayer, and all of our Bible reading should be prayer-filled and prayer-saturated.
00:02:32.000 | And that's what we have in this Psalm. Now, let's look at it.
00:02:35.000 | This psalmist, his name is Asaph. He's a musician, poet, saint.
00:02:41.000 | And he was really discouraged.
00:02:45.000 | He was really down. Let's read it in verses 7 to 10.
00:02:50.000 | "Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never be favorable again?
00:02:56.000 | Has his loving kindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever?
00:03:01.000 | Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger withdrawn his compassion?"
00:03:08.000 | Then I said, "It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed."
00:03:16.000 | Now, I believe that's typical Christian life.
00:03:20.000 | I don't expect 2000 to be anything other than struggling with that.
00:03:27.000 | I know that over time some people hear me preach, and they get the impression somehow, and I just ponder, "How?"
00:03:36.000 | That my sense is that the reason the Psalms were given is with the expectation and the demand
00:03:44.000 | that Christians will live at a consistently triumphant level.
00:03:49.000 | That's crazy. Nobody lives at a consistently triumphant level. Nobody. Period.
00:03:57.000 | And the Psalms are written because nobody lives that way.
00:04:02.000 | And they are written by people who didn't live that way, for people who can't live that way,
00:04:08.000 | because we're so frail, so fragile, so sinful, and full of so many struggles, and battered by so many hard circumstances.
00:04:14.000 | That's reality. It's right here in verses 7 to 10.
00:04:18.000 | So my question is, when I think about the Christian life,
00:04:21.000 | I don't think a lot about how to get Christians to live consistently triumphant lives.
00:04:27.000 | I don't think anybody does.
00:04:31.000 | I don't know if some of you believe that.
00:04:33.000 | I am an absolute pessimist with regard to human nature.
00:04:37.000 | And I don't believe that Christ has entered into this world to sanctify us instantaneously, overnight,
00:04:44.000 | but only over time, so that when we die, then in the twinkling of an eye, or at the last trumpet, we are changed.
00:04:51.000 | And when we see Him, we become like Him.
00:04:54.000 | And before that time, we're stumbling all the way to glory.
00:04:58.000 | And therefore, the Bible is so blatantly realistic about those kinds of things,
00:05:05.000 | that it gives us great help, if we will hear it, for what it says.
00:05:09.000 | In verses 7 to 10, it's pretty clear that this Asaph fellow is in the pit,
00:05:14.000 | doubting God's compassion, wondering about God's reliability,
00:05:19.000 | thinking God's loving kindness has ceased, wondering whether He's favorable at all,
00:05:24.000 | saying He's changed and has become fickle, quite against Malachi 3,
00:05:29.000 | "I, the Lord, do not change, and therefore you are not consumed."
00:05:32.000 | And he says, "It is my grief that the Lord has changed."
00:05:36.000 | This man's in trouble, where we are a lot of the time.
00:05:41.000 | So, what's the point, then, of the way this man lives?
00:05:47.000 | And I want you to see his strategy for Christian living.
00:05:50.000 | I know he's not after Christ, before Christ, but the strategy is the same, I'm arguing.
00:05:55.000 | The strategy to live the Christian life, a life lived on the Word of God,
00:05:59.000 | is the same strategy, then, as now.
00:06:02.000 | Now, the strategy is in verses 11 and 12.
00:06:05.000 | I'm going to skip it and come back to it,
00:06:07.000 | because I want you to see the fruit and effect of the strategy first.
00:06:12.000 | So, you've got a discouraged, low, dismal situation in a man's heart in verses 7 to 10.
00:06:19.000 | Now, I want you to read the same man with me, starting in verse 13.
00:06:27.000 | "Your way, O God, is holy, but God is great, like our God.
00:06:34.000 | You are the God who works wonders.
00:06:37.000 | You have made known your strength among the peoples.
00:06:39.000 | You have, by your power, redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph,
00:06:44.000 | the waters you saw, O God."
00:06:46.000 | He's thinking about the Red Sea and the Exodus.
00:06:49.000 | "The waters saw you, they were in anguish, the deeps also trembled,
00:06:52.000 | the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth sound,
00:06:56.000 | your arrows flashed here and there, the sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind,
00:07:01.000 | the lightnings lit up the world, the earth trembled and shook.
00:07:05.000 | Your way was in the sea, in your paths, in the mighty waters.
00:07:09.000 | Your footprints may not be known, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."
00:07:20.000 | Same man, same man.
00:07:24.000 | So what happened between verse 10 and verse 13?
00:07:30.000 | Many of you this morning are in verse 10, and I hope you want to be in verse 13.
00:07:36.000 | So, all year long, we must learn how to do this.
00:07:42.000 | We go in and out, up and down.
00:07:44.000 | I grasp the Christian life like this.
00:07:46.000 | I think it does go up, for following after God you get above some things as you go along,
00:07:51.000 | but it's not without its deep dips.
00:07:55.000 | All right, let's read the strategy.
00:07:57.000 | Verses 11 and 12.
00:07:59.000 | "I shall remember the deeds of the Lord.
00:08:04.000 | Surely I will remember your wonders of old.
00:08:08.000 | I will meditate on all your work and muse on your deeds."
00:08:18.000 | That's the way to live the Christian life.
00:08:21.000 | The strategy is a life lived on the Word of God,
00:08:25.000 | which alone mediates the deeds and triumphs and wonders of God.
00:08:31.000 | Three words stand out, don't they?
00:08:33.000 | Remembering, meditating, and musing upon the deeds and wonders of God in history.
00:08:43.000 | That's what I want for 2000.
00:08:45.000 | That's what I want.
00:08:46.000 | I want a church filled with people who remember, who meditate, who muse on the mighty deeds of God.
00:08:59.000 | Day in and day out.
00:09:05.000 | Remember, meditate, muse.
00:09:08.000 | The central biblical strategy for living the Christian life,
00:09:12.000 | to come out of darkness, out of discouragement, out of doubt,
00:09:17.000 | is a conscious effort of the mind.
00:09:22.000 | The central biblical strategy.
00:09:25.000 | Bold claim.
00:09:26.000 | A bold claim made in his January 2nd, 2000 sermon on Psalm 77.
00:09:30.000 | It's titled, "I will meditate on all your work and muse on your deeds."
00:09:36.000 | The full sermon is in the sermon archive at desiringgod.org.
00:09:41.000 | Fitting words as we enter our own new year.
00:09:45.000 | New year, new diets, new focus on health.
00:09:49.000 | Friday we look at intermittent fasting.
00:09:51.000 | Fasting is the practice of intermittent fasting, a prostitution of a spiritual discipline.
00:09:56.000 | Pastor John will say, "No, not necessarily."
00:09:58.000 | But it carries some spiritual dangers to be aware of.
00:10:01.000 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:10:03.000 | That's next time. We'll see you then on Friday.
00:10:05.000 | Thanks for listening.
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