You may have wondered why there are two passages for one sermon. We've got the single verse, Romans 15, 13, and we are headed for Psalm 42. I thought it was good to choose Psalm 42 because the pastor that made the bulletin didn't even choose it for singing. Why don't we do that? But there's a reason for both passages being mentioned. Romans 15.13 is mentioned first because it is within the power of God and it belongs to the love of God to stir up hope in you, in his people. It belongs to the power of God. It belongs to the love of God to stir up hope in you. The apostle's longing for those to whom he was writing in Romans chapter 15 was not in vain when he wrote, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Spirit, you may abound in hope. Hope by the power. Do you hear it as I say it? hope in a direct ministry of God to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it's all three categories, right? Joy and peace and hope. May He fill you. He is able to do so. And it belongs to His love to do so, to work with you, to fill you with these things. And one of the reasons I bring that up next to Psalm 42, as introduction, as it were, is that in Psalm 42, we are exploring a record of a sense of deficit in the faith experience of hoping. There's a sense of deficit there. And I think the idea of hope by the power of God is a great principle to place immediately next to this. Think about it. your own faith experience of joy, your own faith experience of that settled confidence of peace, your own faith experience of hoping. It goes like this sometimes, right? The faith experience of those things feels strong, confident, hopeful, as it were, and other times feels bewildered and afraid and all kinds of things. And again, in Psalm 42, we face that. So I want to actually begin expanding some on the Romans 15, 13 idea, because I think it is a very genuine encouragement to think that the very one in whom is to be our joy The very one who is our peace, the very one who is the hope of our experience of hope is also the giver. He's able to work directly with you, with our souls. And that means we can ask Him and we can seek Him to say, stir in me the joy that would match who you are. Stir in me the peace. the settled confidence that belongs to the realities of who you are. Stir in me the expectation of hope. Stir these things. God is able and it belongs to his love to do so. I wanted to explore even briefly, there are at least two aspects to consider, I think, about how God does that. How does he do that? How does the Lord stir these things? If it's by His power that we get hope through the Spirit, how does He go about that? Two aspects to consider. One would be that He communicates. And this is personal, words are personal. He communicates by His words, setting before us all of the objective realities of His character, His nature, that are the substance for trust. He sets them before us, communicates them to us. And so there is objective cause for joy, cause for peace, cause for hope. They're all real in who he is and what he's done, what he's promised that he will do. All of those things are real and they're communicated things. not secrets to wonder about, but they're communicated things. So, there can be, for instance, a faith experience of joy because of all that we know about his character, his wisdom, purpose. unfailing purpose, compassion, faithfulness, goodness, beauty, majesty, the meaningful life he's given. All of these things, we could go on and on with the list. We could make it a very, very great list. These things have been communicated. They are placed there for our consideration, for our thinking. When I think of peace, the cause for the faith experience of your peace has been accomplished in Christ. You have reason to have a settled confidence of peace, because peace has been made. It's already done. Peace has been made for you who believe. Peace has been made. You have been restored to Him. You who believe have been restored to God. Accepted. This one was born there. It's back to our other passage. Think about this, think of the scripture's words in Romans 8, 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? Realities, things that are actual, things that are now. He has made peace through Christ. And if God is for us, who can be against us? I think of chapter eight, verse 38, where the apostle says, I am sure. Think about these declarations. I am sure that neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. He sets before us reason to have peace in our experience, our faith experience of those things. And again, there's cause for hope because all things promised are actual in Christ. God's nature, again, he always keeps promises. His purposes come to fruition through Christ. They will come to fruition. And I think of Scripture's words, like in Hebrews 13.5, I will never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Word of God to you. I think of the counsel of 1 Peter 1.13, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. It will be brought to you. So these are certainties. They are realities in which to hope because of the nature of him in whom we hope. But then there's the second aspect. That first aspect, he communicates, he places before us things that are substance for trust. But secondly, he ministers those truths to the soul for believing. He's actively and personally involved with you, so as that it is not just information to be considered. He is personally active by his spirit to take the truth of the information and make application to the soul itself for the believing of it, to take courage, to have joy, to have hope that way. to shine into our souls the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ, to actually have our eyes and our hearts open to know the love of Christ, which is wide and long and high and deep. You see, His love is objectively those things, but not everyone perceives it. The Lord is active to take the objective truth of it and apply it to the heart for the hoping. So we can appeal to him for that. The reason, again, we're exploring this at the beginning is because the writer of Psalm 42 is experiencing what I could call deficit, a sensation of being, the sense of being distant from the fellowship of God, the sense of even Feeling forgotten, not forgotten, but feeling forgotten. He's exploring all of that, and I think it's good to start in the way that we have. I benefited from Spurgeon's Treasuries of David on this topic, so I might quote him a time or two as we go. But he said along these lines, the loss of the present sense of God's love is not the loss of that love. That faith experience, that sense of his love. And I think we can appeal to him to make the love known to the heart that way. The writer of Psalm 42 speaks of longing for God. He uses the word thirsty. and he gives the deer illustration. I was thinking, you know, I live in the San Joaquin Valley, and I know dry places. The sensation of dry place, if I could picture an animal in the woods, I'd say, yeah, you'd be looking for some streams of water to get some of that from. But again, since he mentions thirst, That is a description of that sensation of deficit that I long for and yet am not experiencing the quenching of that thirst. So I think that's part of what we're exploring there. This particular author wants to be restored to that immediate fellowship with God. God is himself the safety, God is himself the good of which joy could be made, and our writer speaks of being thirsty. Actually, Spurgeon wrote again, when it is as natural for us to long for God as it is for an animal to thirst, it is well with our souls, however painful our feelings. when it is as natural for us to long for God as it is for an animal to thirst. It is well with our souls, no matter how painful our feelings. So let's watch, let's watch how the author of Psalm 42, one of the sons of Korah, this belongs to that category. Let's watch how he processes his circumstance. processes his experience. Here we go. This is to the choir master. It's a Maskell of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for you, O God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? and tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon from Mount Mazar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands His steadfast 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 do I go on mourning? because of the oppression of the enemy. As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down, 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. What is this circumstance? And it's interesting, this is not King David, it seems. It's a masculine of the sons of Korah, and it seems to have been written by a Levite who would have been in charge of leading, in festival times, the people to gather and to worship. He would have been in charge of those kinds of things. That's evident in what he records there. But it does seem that the circumstances that he's separated by, geographically he's separated from Jerusalem. It seems like he's very far from Jerusalem. And he can't get to the house of God. And it seems, I don't know, I think he's a captive. He talks about his enemies, his enemies, and they are hostile to his faith. You talk about your God, I don't see it. I don't see him coming for you. You know, those kinds of things. It's there, there. So where is this? Where's Mount Nazar? That's a little bit hard. It's only mentioned once in scripture. It's just a little hard to put on the map, Mount Nazar. But the thing is, he mentions the land of Jordan and of Hermon, and that's pretty clear. Where is that? That's way north, way up north, way up north above the Sea of Galilee. I think, if I'm not mistaken, he's talking about being 160 miles from Jerusalem or more that way. And again, he might be a captive. Whatever it is, he seems prevented from being able to go to God's house at that point. I had the incredible privilege in July of going to Israel and to go here where this, and I thought about this when I was there, where he speaks of at Hermon and where the Jordan begins up there. Mount Hermon is big. I'm thinking, are they really that big near there? But it's 9,232 feet tall. It has this huge ridge that comes down just a little bit southwest. It comes down at a slight angle. And part of the way the water hits all of that is that it creates springs in the valley below near Dan. Springs in the valley, and that's where the Jordan River starts. And I, standing around there and looking at him, I thought, Again, I'm from the San Joaquin Valley and Israel looks like the San Joaquin Valley and it's so dry all the time. I'm standing around saying, where in the world is any water going to come from? But at Dan, the springs are incredible. The Jordan begins literally, we walked across this little bridge. It wasn't super wide, but it was white water. There's like three major springs and a tributary or something that starts the Jordan River. And it was white water there. I kind of wonder if that's why he's talking about waterfalls and surging waters and such up there. But it's very, very strong. But the thing is, and I'm going on and on, but the thing is that it's about 160 miles from the house of God. Again, one more experience about being in Israel is the idea of travel. You know, when you're on a donkey or you're walking 160 miles is a long way. And he seems prevented, by force it seems, prevented from being able to go to the house of God. as one called upon among the Levites to serve regularly at the house of God, he would have been so familiar, so familiar. He would have had his yearly season of time where he's supposed to be there all the time. Again, he's obviously led the festivals to go there, throngs of people bursting out in praise to him, and now he can't get there. And it's striking to me that God would choose to have put down in Scripture for us and for the choir masters so that we would rehearse it over and over again, this particular experience, this faith experience of turmoil in his soul. And it's striking to me. It seems like it would communicate to us that it should be, in one sense, no surprise if in our feelings we feel the thirst for God and the distance from that fellowship, or feel forgotten. Any of our circumstances might bring that into there. And the Lord says, I think, with this, I think He says, rehearse this. Think about it. Seek me like this. I think he's working with us, putting it there for our constant usage and singing. It's a fairly significant list of things agonizing here. I've talked about deficit, that sense of distance, but he mentions weeping. What's the phrase in there? How frequent is the weeping? day and night. It's constant, and it has been prolonged throughout this. He speaks of aching for the times he remembers that were better. He speaks of being downcast, overwhelmed, I think, swept over by these troubles. Pardon me. Overwhelmed by these troubles. Forgotten. I'm not saying he was forgotten. But when he asks, why have you forgotten me? Oh Lord, he feels forgotten. He's mournful, he's oppressed, stabbed as it were by taunts from his enemies, hostile to his faith, and he is in turmoil on his insides. This is a short song. And that's a lot of stack of communicating to us, the distress of it. And the Lord put it in the book for us to reflect and to rehearse and to sing as He seeks the Lord in the midst of that. You know, I think those kind of circumstances could be received without faith or with faith. You know, think of the distress inside. Why would things be this way unless God had forgotten? Why would the wicked seem to be stronger? Why would there be no restoration to the very city upon which God had placed his name? When his enemies say, where is your God? Why doesn't God simply act and make that impossible to say? Why would the author have to continue threatened but unrescued? Those kinds of things. Those experiences could be received without faith. This man receives them in faith. All of what you hear here is in faith, trusting. This is by no means a venting of bitterness against God for bitterness' sake. This is no shaking of a raised fist as God. In fact, this, is worship. Does that make sense as I say that? Pouring out his heart just like this is worship to the Lord. The expression of the bewilderment here is the bewilderment of believing and asking God to restore to his faith experience the truth that he knows. Restore to my faith experience the truth that I know. And I think the psalm shows the very genuine legitimacy of pouring out your heart to God with all the realities of your state of mind, your bewilderment. And this is just a question you have to answer out loud. When you pray, do you pour out your heart like this? Do you think of God as inviting you to pour out your heart like this. Here he is, I believe he is, inviting you, pour out your heart to me, find me. Come to me. Tell me what's really there. Find me in this. I honestly think we could even say to the Lord, I believe, Lord, help thou my thirstlessness, if thirstlessness is the problem. We can pour out our heart to Him. What's our faith experience? And do we know these truths and hopes that way? So there's just three things I'm going to mention that he's doing. He's pouring out his soul to God in prayer. Secondly, he is recalling the faith experience of joy. You know, when he mentions recalling those better times, being with the people going to the festival, just rejoicing, everybody's bursting out in praise. I know that may be just one way to express the heartache. He may just be doing that, but I kind of think he's doing more. You see, to remember that faith experience... that experience of joy actually better matches the realities of who God is in his faithfulness. And he had a season during which that was vivid to him. And he experienced all of that confidence, all of that joy, the outburst of praise from throngs of people. When these new harsh circumstances have come, nothing's changed about God. He remembers the good, but nothing's changed about God. And I think it's good to think that through. His experience of joy, the singing, the procession, the throngs of people and all of that match the reality of who God is. And he showed that to him, so he remembers that. So I would encourage you to think too. Can you remember in your own experience times where God just supplied joy, right? I mean, seasons of time, occasions where God just supplied the joy deeply, richly, strongly, courage, you name it, you know, with that. Can you remember those times? Your faith experience at that time is what matches who God really is, even if your circumstances have changed. So I think that's part of this picture. And then finally, the author is rehearsing to his own soul objective realities as he prayed. Did you hear him doing that as he was praying? Rehearsing to his own soul things that he knows are true. And my last virgin quote, his faith reasoned with his fears. His hope argued with his sorrows. And I think it's a wonderful capacity that God has granted us, that we are not subject to our emotions. We are not subject to them. We may, by his grace and who he's made us to be in his image, we may address them. We may address our fears with truth. And that's what I think this man is doing. We can consciously set the truth before our souls, put your hope in God, I will yet praise Him again, my Savior, my God, my joy, my delight, my light, my truth, my stronghold, my rock, my salvation, my God. Let's pray.