Hope in God

Today we are going to open up Psalm 42. As we walk through this Psalm, the question you should have in the back of your mind is, "What does hope in God look like when life gets hard?" Last week we talked about belief in Christ, in whom God has revealed Himself to us authoritatively and most clearly. However, it might seem easy, when life is going well, to believe the Jesus is our savior, that God loves us, that God cares about us, sees us, and is there for us. But what about when life gets hard? 

Read Psalm 42  

Sometimes we get the idea, or someone tells us, that part of what it means to be a Christian is to always be smiling, to always be happy. To be chipper, perky, paste on that church smile and say, "Jesus makes me warm inside." That is some folks' notion of Christianity. But is this what real faith and hope in God always look like? This Psalm would tell us otherwise.  

Movement 1 

This Psalm falls into two basic parts, verses 1-5 and then verses 6-11. The each end with an identical phrase commending hope in God; but let's start where the Psalm starts.  

v1-2 In verses one and two the Psalmist begins with an analogy. He describes for us a thirst for God which is analogous to a deer panting for running water in a dry and arid land. Like a deer being pursued by predators, deeply in need of a drink, so the Psalmist feels. Oh, that he might drink from the fountain of God's presence! He longs to appear before God, but apparently has been cut off from Jerusalem and the temple, where God's people worshiped in the Old Testament.  

v3 In verse three he further details the torments of his soul. He is so distraught that he continually finds himself weeping. "My tears have been my food day and night." This is the kind of anguish he feels from sensing a separation from God.  

v4 Adding to the anguish he feels in this scenario are the memories of the times when he was able to not only go to the house of God, but to lead the processions of people in their singing, shouting, and worshiping of the Lord. As amazing as that experience must have been at the time, its absence now is a source of pain for him. God will do that for us sometimes; teach us the value and importance of something by taking it away, either for a time or for the rest of our lives.  

v5 As we move into verse five we see the Psalmist engaging in what we might call a "personal pep talk." It's a bit more serious than that, but we'll call it that anyway. He rebukes himself for being so cast down and torn up, preaches to himself that he must wait upon God, patiently hoping in Him; because one day He will again experience His presence. 

Movement 2 

v6 Moving from this pep talk of hope in verse five, in verse six we see again that the Psalmist soul is cast down within him. This causes him to remember God wherever he roams, from the land of the Jordan to Mount Mizar. 

v7 In verse seven our writer returns to the use of imagery, and pictures the afflictions of his soul as the roar of a waterfall or the breaking of waves of water crashing over him. [Note: this is the perspective of every single commentary I consulted. I personally wonder if verses 5-8 shouldn't be taken as one piece, all referring to the need to hope in God, whose love and kindness crash over the writer like so many waves. However, because my view is completely novel as far as I can tell, I elected to teach what is the consensus understanding of these verses.] These trials can all be traced back to the Sovereign hand of God, for they are His waves, and the waterfall belongs to Him as well. 

v8 Contrast this with verse eight, where not only does God control the afflictions that befall us, but He has a steadfast love which we can firmly trust in. He commands His love, His mercy, and at night the Psalmist can say, "God's song is with me," and commit his prayer to the God of his life.  

v9 But moving into verse nine, what does he say to God? He wonders, "why have you forgotten me?" Why am I mourning, oppressed by my enemies? 

v10 In verse ten this lament continues as he describes what it feels like as his enemies torment him, jeer him, and mock him--"where is your God?" they sneer. This sneering, combined with the separation from God which the Psalmist already senses, combine to pierce like a dagger or a spear into his bones. 

What defense of it shall you give? 

v11 Verse eleven, though, brings us back to the all important conclusion; an exact repeat of what we read in verse five. "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, my salvation and my God." 

4 Lessons to Draw 

So there is an overview of the Psalm, I want to quickly draw four lessons from it and apply them to our lives today. 

1) Life is hard. Circumstances and make life difficult, often circumstances which are out of our control. And then there are the times when other people make things worse. There may even be times when it feels as if God Himself has forsaken us. In verses 3 & 10 we see the Psalmist being mocked, and in verse 9 he wonders aloud if God has forgotten him. It seems like life keeps crashing on him like a waterfall, breaking over him, wave after wave after wave. Life is hard.  

2) Our response to life being hard is often to feel cast down in our souls. To be sad, depressed, upset, etc. I said in the introduction that some people think Christian=happy. This simply is not so. There are times when we, like the man writing this Psalm, feel overwhelmed by life and cut off from God. And even though He never does leave His children (Hebrews 13:5), the feeling that He has or will can sometimes be debilitating.  

3) The proper response to feeling cast down in soul or separated to God is then to thirst for God. We need to know that a proper thirst for God in difficult times is just as much a sign of our love for Him as rejoicing in Him is when times are good. Feeling separated from God and longing to be near Him is a sign of spiritual health, not sickness. The person writing this Psalm knew God deeply, knew what it means to love God, and knew that when we feel apart from God, our number one priority should be a desire to be near Him.  

4) We must learn to trust God, to hope in God, and nothing else. Look at the circumstances of the writer: cut off from Jerusalem, the temple, the center of Hebrew worship; adversaries mocking him; his own soul cast down within him --he could easily have looked at this and thought, "God must not be real, or he wouldn't allow all these bad things to happen", or, "God must not be good, a good God would save me from bad things happening." If we rely on our circumstances or our feelings to guide us, we will end up believing all sorts of lies about God, about the world, and about ourselves. We must cultivate a deep distrust for our feelings into our lives.  

Conclusion 

The Psalmist rebukes himself, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" and he points himself to where his confidence must rest: "Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." Hope in God.  

Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

Believe in Jesus

South Lake Youth Ministries 

Small Group and Youth Group Curriculum

Believe In Jesus

Introduction: 

Welcome to the Absolute Curriculum. Before we get rolling, let's look backward and forward. If you were with us last year, you might recall the rough order of what we covered. We began with a lesson on the Absolute importance of God's word, the moved into the doctrine of God. We discussed the Trinitarian Being of God, that God is three persons, each of these Persons (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) is fully God, and there is one God. One Being, three persons. Three persons, one essence. From there we moved into God's actions as Creator, specifically His creation of mankind. Man was created imageo dei, in the image of God, and thus has incredible value, as well as many of the attributes of God, although in finite form. Human beings can think, love, feel, make choices. From there we examined the fallen nature of man, that we chose to direct our worship, love, and admiration away from God and towards lesser things. We chose to worship and serve the created (usually ourselves) rather than the Creator. But God didn't leave it there, did He? No, immediately He promises a coming Redeemer, and eventually sends into history His Son, The Word. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes into human history, takes on human flesh, lives a perfect life, dies an atoning death for our sins, and rises from the grave victorious over sin, death, the grave. He drank the full cup of God's wrath and rose from the dead that we may too walk in newness of life. In the last couple of sessions we looked at some practical responses in terms of prayer, Bible reading, and being part of the local church. 

As we begin a new year of curriculum, I want to begin with a similar focus as what we built to last year: the centrality of Jesus. The fact that you must believe in Him to be saved. Moving forward from here, we'll look next week at what it means to hope in God, then we'll spend two weeks looking at the two greatest commandments: to love God, and to love our neighbor. From there we will launch into examinations of the Ten Commandments, and Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5, commonly referred to as the Beatitudes. We will also look at a couple of other topics, but those will consume the bulk of our time together this school year. 

Let's begin. The first thing I want to do is look at three verses in the opening chapter of John's Gospel.  

"He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."  John 1:11-13 

The "He" in these verses is Jesus, which if you look at verses 1-5 and 14-18 becomes very clear. In looking at 11-13, especially verse 12, I want to ask four questions: 

• Who hasn't received Him? 

First we need to see the contrast between verses 11 and 12. Who did not receive Jesus? Answer: His own. Who are Jesus "own"? The Jewish people. Jesus came as the Son of David promised in 2 Samuel 7, the true King of Israel. But His own people did not receive Him. Some did, His original disciples were of course entirely Jewish. But most did not. In John chapter 5 Jesus chastises the Pharisees for searching the Scriptures and believing that this would bring them life--this chastisement was not because the Scriptures don't bring life, but rather because the way they bring life is by pointing to Jesus (John 5:39, 2 Timothy 3:15). But they refused to acknowledge this, and they did not receive their own Messiah. 

• Then who has received Him? 

So if the Jews did not receive Him, the same Jews who were given the Old Testament Scriptures, the Law, the prophets, and all of the promises contained therein, what hope has anyone else? Much hope indeed. Because to all who did receive Him He gave the right to become children of God. All who received, regardless of previous creed, color, ethnicity, background, gender, any of it. Any who receive are saved. 

• What does it mean to receive Jesus? 

 So, the question becomes, what does it mean to receive Jesus? Do I pray a prayer, sign a decision card, "ask Jesus into my heart", do some religious ritual, join a particular church? No. The answer to the question, "what does it mean to receive Jesus?" is quite simple: believe. Believe that Jesus Christ is who says He is, that He did what He said He did, and that He will do what He promises He will do. He is the One sent from the Father (John 20:21), He came to die for our sins (Mark 8:31, Romans 3:24-25), and He will give eternal life to all who believe in Him (John 3:16-18, Hebrews 11:6), and He is coming back one day to receive His people to Himself (John 14:1-4, Revelation 22:7,12). To trust in Christ is to believe all that He is and all that He has said. It is, quite simply, to trust Him. 

• What have those who believe been given? 

So then, what has been given to those who believe, and thus receive, Jesus? The right to become children of God. What does this mean? What is the significance of being a child of God? Well, one could go on for hours on his topic, but I want to look quickly at three things.  

First, it means we are no longer God's enemies, but rather His children. We were created to be God's children. God man in His own image, He made man to reflect His glory to all of creation, to other people, and back toward God Himself in worship. But we rejected God's kind and loving rule, His loving Fatherhood. We became sinners, and insodoing, we became God's enemies (Romans 5:10). But when we receive Christ and His payment for our sins, we are no longer God's enemies, we are now His children. What an incredible change of status in the eyes of God! We have been freely brought back into the family, not because of our good works, but because of Christ. 

Second, being God's child means we are part of His family, His body, the Church. In Galatians 6:10, the apostle Paul refers to the household of faith. In places like Ephesians 4:1-6 and Philippians 2:1-4 the apostle discusses the love, kindness, and unity that ought to happen among those who call themselves Christians. While of course we don't do this perfectly, and often do not do it well, when we walk in obedience to Christ together there is a type of love and support and community that is not present anywhere else in the world, even in our own blood family. 

Third, to be God's child means to be a fellow heir with Christ. Many of us are familiar with Romans 8:28, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." But do you know what comes next? Verse 29 says this, "For those whom He foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." You and I, if we believe in Christ, have been made co-heirs with Christ, His very brothers and sisters! Children of the most high God, with dignity beyond measure, and a weight of glory beyond all comparison being prepared for us (2 Corinthians 4:17). This is what it means to be God's child. But it only belongs to those who receive Jesus, and the only ones who receive Jesus are those who believe. We must believe.