To Psalm 42, I'll be reading verses 1 through 5. Our text this morning, as you turn there, I greet you on behalf of Mission to North America, which is the Home Mission's sending agency of the Presbyterian Church in America. I greet you also from our home church, which is Oconee Presbyterian Church in Seneca, South Carolina. Initials OPC, so I get to say that I'm still in the OPC. Very thankful to be here. I'm also reminded often as I stand in this pulpit, this is the very space in which I had the privilege of being married to my dear wife in this place. Such a beautiful building and such wonderful memories. Let's now turn our attention to the Word of God. Psalm 42, the inspired title to the chief musician, a contemplation of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, 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? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, where is your God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's bow our hearts before the Lord to pray. O gracious God and Father, we lift our hearts unto you, the living God, We cry out to you. We know that from you comes all of our help. We rest ourselves in you through your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is all of our salvation and all of our satisfaction. And we trust, O Lord, that you will speak to us through the ministry of your word. We ask you that now, seeking your grace, your help, your spirit. For it's in Jesus' name that we ask. Amen. Do you ever feel as if God is far away? Do you ever feel as if perhaps God is not even there? Do you ever feel as if God is distant, absent, as if perhaps he's there but he doesn't care, or perhaps he's there but he has forsaken you, perhaps because of something in you he has forsaken you? Do you ever feel discouraged? I can remember as a 19-year-old young man who had committed the crime of armed robbery. And for the first time, I've heard this sound many times since, but for the first time hearing the sound of a metal door clanging shut behind me. And in that moment, feeling as if all hope was lost, and as if I were utterly alone in the world. I hope that none of you have ever heard that sound, or if you have, it's because you are doing prison ministry. But if you've heard that sound, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And yet, what I didn't know at the time is that God had not forsaken me. That God was with me even though my heart was not with Him. God was with me and God had been my God even from before the foundation of the world. I just didn't know it yet. We are so often in our Christian lives discouraged, aren't we? And when we're discouraged, we're discouraged primarily because we feel as if things are not going the way that we think that they ought to go or things are happening in our lives that seem to be out of control. We get discouraged, and in those moments of discouragement, we're tempted, are we not, to think that God is far, far away. But as we come to this psalm, and really all of the psalms have something of this in them, we come to a psalm like this and we come to understand that though we know what it's like to feel like a hunted deer, to feel spiritually out of breath, thirsting, longing, panting for refreshment from God, we know also that there is good news here in this psalm, as there is in all of the Word of God, because all of the Word of God points us to our Savior, Jesus. There's good news for us here in this psalm, and the good news is that God knows our need God knows your need for spiritual refreshment. He knows it so well. And He knows it And he's given you what you need right here in his word, right here in Psalm 42. What we hope to see this morning from Psalm 42, these first five verses, is that even when we feel, even when we feel that God is far away, we can reassure our hearts that he promises to be present with us always by his word and by his spirit. And we want to see that this morning in three points. First, the experience of God's absence. Second, the reality of God's presence. And third, the comfort of God's promise. Let's look first at our first point, the experience of God's absence. And what we have here in verses 1 to 3 is a picture of the believers' deep longing for God, often in family worship as we come to A picture like this, I want my children to understand that the pictures in Scripture, those word pictures, and Hebrew does this so often, in the poetic sections especially, I want my children to understand that these pictures are speaking to us of spiritual realities. And that's true here. Psalm 42 comes at the beginning of book two of the Psalter. It's a section that describes the glories of the kingdom of Israel as that kingdom reached her heights under Solomon, under David, and then Solomon. And yet already at this point in the Psalter, there is a hint of what's yet to come. The kingdom of God will only come through great suffering, through great affliction. See that all the way back in Psalm 22. It's the pattern of the life of the nation of Israel and the pattern of David, the consummate king of Israel, who I believe is the author of this Psalm. And ultimately, it's the pattern of the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, pattern of our own lives as well. As we follow Jesus imperfectly by grace and through faith, we are reminded of this, that there must come a cross before a crown, that there must come suffering and affliction before glory. I do believe that David, though we don't have his name here in the inspired title, I do believe that he is the author of this psalm. But what we read here is, to the chief musician, a contemplation of the sons of Korah. And I believe this tells us something very important about this psalm. It tells us that this psalm first of all, was a psalm that was designed to be used in public worship. It was delivered into the hands of the musicians, into the hands of the Levites, the temple musicians, the sons of Korah. And what's so amazing about these sons of Korah, perhaps you children will remember this story from the Old Testament, their name is synonymous with one of the great acts of rebellion in the Bible. The father of these sons of Korah had turned against Moses and Aaron and was swallowed up by the earth for his sin. but the wonder of God's grace shines forth in the way that despite the sin of the father, the sons were spared. And it was these very sons saved by grace who led the people of God in God's praises, in God's tabernacle, and later in God's temple. Isn't that wonderful to think about? the grace of God on display right here in just the title of the psalm. And while the title tells us that this psalm is a song of the sons of Korah, I do believe also that its author, I believe David, was a single individual summing up the experience of all of God's people and ultimately the experience of our Savior in the voice of one man. And you see this so often in the psalms, often the voice of the one speaking, the king, David often is really speaking as the very voice of Jesus Christ as Christ speaks to us through his word. And I believe he does this, I believe that this is through the lens of the experience of David himself. Think of David as he's on the run from Saul, or David fleeing Jerusalem to escape the treason of his son Absalom, or David in the wilderness living in the scorching desert of Judea, sweltering under the heat of the Middle Eastern sun. Or David being hunted by his enemies, pursued like a deer. There's that image again, his sides heaving, his nostrils flaring, his eyes darting this way and that way for fear of a hunter's spear or stone. That's the picture. That's the picture, a picture that even a child could understand. And what David is saying, what the psalmist is saying, is this is my experience. This is how I feel on the inside. This is my inner reality. And notice here that the Psalms and the Bible as a whole don't deny the fact that we do have feelings, we do have an inner reality. There is something that happens within. The Psalms don't deny that and actually bring that out in such a clear way, but As we see this, we see that this experience, this experience of David is really the experience of the people of God in every culture, in every generation. We are a people called to live and to worship God. We should never forget this. We are called to live and worship God in the dry and thirsty and barren wilderness of this world. We're not there yet. We haven't reached our home yet. This world is not our home. And so often we forget that. And we think that the experiences that we face in this world are the ultimate reality. We are just passing through this world with much work to do and service to God to do. But nevertheless, we live in a thirsty, barren wilderness. We need to remember that. David uses nearly identical language in Psalm 63 in his prayer to God when he says, Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for you. Notice where? in the sanctuary to see your power and glory because your lovingkindness is better than life. My lips shall praise you." It's that deep yearning for God that we find here in Psalm 42, but there's also a problem. There's a deep longing for God, but the psalmist is where? He's far from the presence of God, the special, gracious presence. We know that God is omnipresent. And so that there's nowhere in the world and even hell itself where God is not in some sense present, and yet it's here. In the Old Testament language, that would be called the sanctuary, the place of God's special presence, the dwelling place of God. But for us, it's here in the worship of God's people, not a place. But when God's people gather together And here the faithful preaching of God's word and the sacraments are administered and the worship of God's people goes up through the Lord Jesus Christ who has ascended and reigning in heaven. We are in that place with him. We are said to be seated in heavenly places with Christ. And so this place here, the sanctuary of God, the special place of God's presence. Lord's Day after Lord's Day after Lord's Day, this is where God is especially present. And you see the problem. It's a problem that I faced for nine years as a Christian, and many of those years in solitary confinement, unable to gather together with God's people in the worship of God, something we take for granted, don't we? and yet it's the most precious privilege that we have in this world. And it's a foretaste of the life of the world to come. This is the mountaintop of the Christian life. And so you see here in verse two, and also in verse four, The psalmist David, I believe, is far from the presence of God. We need to keep in mind that in the old covenant language, God's people would come to appear before him three times a year for those high, holy days of worship. That language of appearing before God, it's the language of Deuteronomy chapter 31. All Israel was to appear before God in the place that he would choose. They were to come and to hear the law of God read. They were to appear before the Lord to worship Him with their sacrifices and with their offerings, confessing their sins and seeking peace in the presence and the shadow of the Almighty. That is the problem. David is unable to be where his Lord is, especially present, graciously present. And you can think about those that you know who are unable to be with us here this morning. You can think of those who have health needs or for a whole variety of different reasons would want to be here with us but are unable to be here with us. Or think about times in your own life when you've been sick and unable to come to worship and you know that it's different, it's not the same. You thank God for a live stream and being able to worship God in that way but you know that it's not the same, is it? And that's because God is especially present here. This is what the psalmist is missing. He not only longs to appear before the Lord, but he longs to worship him with a heart full of the praises of Almighty God, but the problem is that his desire doesn't match his experience. He feels abandoned by God, cast off by the Lord. That's what he's getting at in verse three. My tears have been my food day and night. It's as if he's saying, that's all that I have is tears to show for my love for the Lord. I want you to think this morning about a mother and a father whose children have been swept away by a raging river. That's the kind of experience that we're seeing here. Where is your God? The enemies of God are saying to him, Where is your God, the one that you boasted of, where is your God in this? How could God really be the kind of God that you say that He is when He allows this or that to happen in your life? Where is your God? Where is God when my enemies all around me are saying, where is this God that you say is for you and not against you? And perhaps you feel that way at times, perhaps you feel that way even this very morning, as if God has abandoned you, as if he's not hearing you, as if he is ignoring you, as if he cannot or will not hear your prayers, as if the whole world has come down upon you. as if the circumstances that God has placed in your life, and you know that God has placed these circumstances in your life, you know that intellectually, you also know that he says he will not give you too much to bear, but you feel as if it's too much for you, too overwhelming for you, and you have no strength left to keep running the race of faith. Do you feel that way this morning? Have you ever felt that way? Well, dear believer, what Psalm 42 teaches you and me, especially in those moments, is that while that may be your experience, that is never the reality for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, for those who are in him by faith. That brings us to our second point, which is the reality of God's presence. What do you do when you feel as if God is absent, far away, Because it's at this point that so many of our discouragements come. Have you ever felt so discouraged, so overwhelmed that you just can't even bring yourself to pray? The simplest act. It's like breathing for the believer and yet you find yourself unable to pray and we know that God's word has a provision for that because the Holy Spirit promises in those moments to intercede for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. What a wonderful provision from God. God knows our weakness. A father who pities his children as we just confessed a few moments ago. Have you ever felt so discouraged, so dismayed, distressed, depressed, that you were paralyzed, unable to function in even the most ordinary tasks of life. And this happens to believers. I know this. As a pastor, I know this. But you know, so often, our discouragements and anxieties and fears are based on what we don't know. rather than what we do know. And let me illustrate that from an experience in my own life. I'd been in solitary confinement for membership in a white supremacist prison gang, and the Lord delivered me so graciously out of that whole mindset and ideology. And I was released from general population, having renounced my membership in the gang. And I was in general population again, And another inmate who was seeking to attack my cellmate, I was standing in between him and my cellmate, attacked me with a blade and cut me. And on the one hand, God was very gracious to me. This inmate went and cut himself over the eye to make it look like we had been fighting rather than him attacking me. God was very gracious to give me this moment in which I was being treated by a nurse, and she was an African American nurse, and she saw the racist tattoos on my arm right where she was treating me. And I said to her, I'm so sorry that you're having to look at that. but that's not who I am anymore. And she said, well, who are you? And I said, well, I'm a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And she said, don't ever get your tattoos removed. They're a testimony. I have started to get the tattoos removed. I didn't, I didn't listen to her on that point, but she was, God was so gracious to me in giving me that moment. And then I was put in back into solitary confinement. And that night I received, in the one hand, a disciplinary case, a major disciplinary case, meaning that even though I was up for parole, I was not going home. In the other hand, I received my parole papers. I had been released on parole. And the one canceled out the other. And I was plunged into a despair that I had never known as a Christian before. And probably because I had placed too much emphasis on getting out. And really I only had a year and a half left. I'd spent 15 and a half years in prison, but I wanted so much to be released, especially so that I could worship God together with his people. And I fell into despair and I paced myself. I didn't know what to do. And then I turned again to the Psalms and the Lord comforted my heart. And do you know what he did in that moment? I was reminded by God's word. What we read here in verse five, I was reminded simply this, to hope in God. There's no hope anywhere else. I was reminded that even if I spent the rest of my life in prison, it would be worth it to live that life in prison for Jesus Christ. I was reminded to cling to the reality of God's presence in the very midst of my discouragement, in the very midst of my despair, in the very depths of my internal experience of God's absence. God was still God. Not only that, he was still my God. He hadn't abandoned me. His word was still true. He was still in control. He had always been my God. All those years in prison and God had never forsaken me. Even in the darkest moments, He had still been my God. He had protected me from harm. I showered with 150 other men who could see my tattoos. I couldn't hide those tattoos from them. And they knew what those tattoos meant. And yet I had renounced that gang. And that gang was committed to come after me. And you know what? They never did. Not even once did they ever come after me. Because God was my God. And He had forsaken me. And even if they had come after me, He would still be my God. And even if I'd lost my life, I had a life to live forever in heaven. God was still my God. And do you know what happened a few days after that incident? The disciplinary charges against me were dropped because inmates and officers had gone to the disciplinary captain, who was called the hanging judge, who never let anyone go. And they told him what really happened. And they told him what they knew of me and my life. And I was released from solitary confinement and very soon I was released also from prison. but I needed that experience because God taught me through that experience that my experience is not the measure of His loving kindness and His faithfulness toward me. He taught me that I may feel as if He's absent, but in reality, He's promised never to leave me, never to forsake me, never to abandon me, never to crush me, never to destroy me or you if your faith is in Jesus. Brothers and sisters, your experience is not the measure of God's love toward you. Rather, Jesus Christ and his person and work is the measure of God's love towards you. Look back with me at verse 4. The psalmist is away from the place of God's presence, he's away from the tabernacle, he's far from any visible manifestation of God's saving love. He can't hear the law of God being read in public worship, he can't offer sacrifices on the altar, can't smell the incense and know the prayers of the priests are going up on his behalf and for all of God's people can't stand outside the tent of the Lord's presence and see the hands of the priest lifted up in the Aaronic benediction and know that God, though he is unworthy of it, is pleased with him through his Son. He remembers what it's like to be in the special place of God's covenant presence, the place of God's public worship, the mountaintop of the believer's life in this world. He longs for it again. He longs to worship God together with God's people, and his absence from that place is by circumstance and not by choice. He remembers the joy and the wonder of being among the pilgrims, going up to Jerusalem for a pilgrim feast in the presence of God, and do you know what he does? He clings to the past mercies of God by faith. Like someone being swept down a raging river, clinging to anything, a piece of wood to hold on to life, he clings to God. and who God is, and what God has done, and all that God has promised yet to do. He remembers who God has revealed himself to be, especially in his dwelling place, in the place of his special presence, the place of abiding mercy and grace, that place that in the old covenant, in all of its inscrutable types and shadows, pointed forward to a person, the person of Jesus Christ. And he won't let go of that. He won't let go of his Savior because he knows that his Savior will never let go of him. You see, that, not his present experience, is who God really is for David. Your God and my God is a God who does not, who cannot, who will not change. The God who, though he spared David from all the harm that his enemies wanted to do to him, nevertheless, he did not spare his own son for David's sake, for your sake, and for our children's sake. The psalmist has learned the lesson of the tabernacle and of the mercy seat. A simple lesson, but oh, what a comforting and heart-fortifying lesson. Do you know what it is? It's this. God is determined with omnipotent determination to dwell with his people in love and to deliver them by demonstrating that love in his Son. Dear child of God, what do you do when you're discouraged? What do you do? Do you remind yourself of the tender mercies of God towards you? Towards this church? Towards your children in Jesus Christ? Do you remind yourself of how often God has made Himself known to you, in this place even? Of His goodness to you, Lord's Day after Lord's Day. Do you treasure that up for the time when you won't be able to be here? Maybe you'll be on a hospital bed remembering what you experienced in this place, the power, the presence of God himself at work in your sinful but sanctified soul. It feels like God is not there. Don't listen to your feelings, dear believer. Listen instead to the voice of God speaking to you in his word by his son, which brings us to our last point, the comfort of God's promise. And there really is only one source of encouragement for the believer. Our encouragement is in the unbreakable promises of our covenant-keeping God. I remember a time When my children, some of them younger than they are now, were listening to the audio version of Pilgrim's Progress and they were literally, in their own minds anyway, literally in Doubting Castle. And the giant despair was looming over them and their faces were just scrunched up in this mixture of anxiety and fear. And you could tell that their concern was that Pilgrim might not make it to the Celestial City. And they felt as if they were there. What's going to happen? What's going to happen to Christian? What's going to happen to me? And do you remember at that point in the story, Christian had received something from Evangelist. It was a key, and he pulls the key out. And written on the key is a word, the word promise. He was reminded in that moment that he had everything that he needed to unlock the castle door. The key was right there all along. He had what he needed. He had it all along. It had been given to him by evangelists and by God through him. And so dear discouraged brother or sister in Christ, the key that unlocks doubting castle is the key of promise. The key of the promises of your promise making and promise keeping God. Look with me again at verse five. The psalmist begins to ask questions of himself. He's engaging in what we might call a bit of spiritual self-talk, which is what we do when we seek to discourage ourselves, don't we? We say to ourselves, inside of ourselves, we talk ourselves into doubting castle saying, oh no, here he comes again. Here comes that giant despair and what will happen if this and what will happen if that and what new catastrophe will tomorrow bring? We begin to imagine the worst conceivable scenarios and we paralyze ourselves with our own imaginations, the dark imaginations of our own fertile fears. What does God's word teach us to do instead? It teaches us to go back to what we know to be true, to say to ourselves, to engage in a different kind of self-talk, to say to ourselves, oh self, What reason do you have for discouragement? What reason do you have for despair? Hope in God, hope in Christ. And if you say to yourself, I can't do it, then cry out to God for the strength to do it. Hope in the one who is hope incarnate. Hope in the resurrection. Hope in the promises of the gospel. Say to yourself, my Savior has conquered these doubts for me already at the cross. And the tomb is empty. I'm alive in Him. I have no reason for despair. And why? Because I died and my life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ died for me. He didn't just die. He died for me. How can I not live for Him even in the face of this? Whatever this is, whatever it is, no matter how dark it is, He's given me His word. I have the hope and the comfort and the light of the scriptures. And I know this, that He's coming again and He's not going to leave me in this body of death. He's not going to leave me in the grave. He's alive in me, and because He's alive in me, I am alive in Him. I have His Holy Spirit, so why am I cast down by this? So ephemeral, so temporary. Why am I cast down? Why am I disquieted? Why am I worried? Why am I anxious, frustrated, impatient, angry, overwhelmed? Hope in God. That's the simple message of the psalm. My God is for me, not against me, and His Son, Jesus Christ. I have all the promises of His Word. I have the gift of faith. I have the whole armor of God. I'm not alone. I have a helper. I have a comforter. The Spirit of the risen Lord Jesus Christ is in me, dwells within me. I, by His grace, shall yet praise Him. I will praise Him when my circumstances tell me not to, when the world tells me not to, when the flesh tells me not to, when the devil tells me not to I will praise Him when the enemy of my soul is hunting me like a panting deer. I will praise Him when my doubts threaten to paralyze my heart. I will praise Him on my deathbed. I will praise Him because He is my God and I am His child and His word says it and I cannot fail to believe it. I will praise him in and by and through faith in his son now in this life and yet I will praise him forever in the endless ages of the life of the world to come. And yet we need his grace to say any of those things and all of those things. So what do you do when God seems to be far away? When he seems in your experience to be absent? What do you do when you feel spiritually spent, thirsty, desperate, alone, when you feel as if there's no spiritual life in you at all, when you feel like you don't even have the strength to pray a single prayer? What do you do? You remind yourself of who you are and whose you are in Christ. You assure yourself by Christ, by his word, that your inner experience is not the ultimate reality. You hope in God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You remember the reality of his presence. You can't see him, and yet you love him because he first loved you. and because he's given you every evidence that he is real and he is worthy of your love. You take hold of his promises by faith. You turn from every form of self-pity and self-condemnation, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus by faith. You refuse to wallow in the false comfort of your own inner life, as the world would have you to do Instead, you turn away from self entirely and exclusively to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust and rest not in yourself, not in your own feelings, not in your own sin warped interpretation of reality, but instead you rest in the steadfast, everlasting covenant love of God. And you rest in the unchanging, unshifting rock of God's presence, in the faithfulness of his word. And you turn to him like a deer panting for water in the desert. You turn to him for his presence here in preaching. You turn to him for his presence here, the assurance of his love in the administration of the sacraments. You turn to him in prayer. You turn to him by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and you turn to him for refreshment and rest, where only it can be found in his Son, who is in heaven, but who is also in your heart. and in our very midst this morning. You turn to him. You turn to him and him alone. What do you do? God seems far away. Hope in God. For I shall yet praise him. Hope in God, for he is the help of my countenance and my God. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we lift our hearts unto you. We cry out to you and plead with you that you might give us the grace to rest in who you are, in what you've done, and in all that you have promised yet to do, that you would strengthen our hearts now while we are here in the sanctuary, in the place of your presence, that you would strengthen us here for the dark moments in life. And we will be tempted to feel as if you are not there. Strengthen us and give us hope. For we hope in you and you alone, through your Son, Jesus Christ, and by your Spirit. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.