Our Lord Jesus Christ is described in Isaiah 53 as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. It is not surprising to us that if our role model, our Lord, is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, that at times it is our lot to be sorrowful, beset with sorrows, possibly even characterized and grievously afflicted. I think this is a point that is worth pondering because there's a pop psychology idea in our culture that we're supposed to be happy all the time. And like many false paths, it has enough truth in it to be beguiling. And the truth in it is, is that Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And His will is your joy. His will is for you to know the joy that He Himself knows and to be joyful in Himself. But that does not mean that the path has no sorrow in it. And in a sin-cursed world, it'd be a little bit surprising to expect to be happy all the time, or to not be a little bit vexed with people who act like they are happy all the time. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And you might say, yeah, well, I've got sorrow Jesus didn't have because I have sin. And some of my sadness is because of my sin. Well, you know what? Jesus had more nerve endings than you do because he knew what it was like to be sinless and be in a sin-cursed world. So I think that more than compensates for maybe whatever sorrow you might feel like that you have that he might not. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and so we should not find it surprising, or as 1 Peter says, don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you. It's not strange. It's, as Watchman Nehuss said, the normal Christian life. And so as we come to Psalm 119, to the fourth stanza this morning, it's so good to have an inspired Word of God that shows us what to pray and what to say when the sorrows come. And what a relief it is to be liberated from this thought that I can't admit it when I'm down. And may God bless you with friends to whom you can say when they ask you, how are you doing? And you know that they mean it because they stopped talking after that. You can say, I'm doing bad right now. And not be considered weird. or somehow abnormal. Turn with me to Psalm 119 and we'll read it from the beginning. It's a luxury we have since we're only going to verse 32 today. But as we've said, this is a poem written in acrostic fashion, A, B, C, D, and the Hebrew alphabet all the way to the end, where every stanza begins with a new letter. So apparently it was meant to be memorized. And it's a poem that seems to reflect the experience of a follower of God who followed God for a long time and went through ups and downs. And we take it to be the writing of King David. That could be incorrect, but there's much evidence that way. Psalm 119, verses 1 through 32. I'm reading from the New King James Version. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity. They walk in his ways. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments. I will praise you with a brightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I will keep your statutes. Oh, do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man cleanse his way? taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandments, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips I've declared all the judgments of your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law. I'm a stranger in the earth. Do not hide your commandments from me. My soul breaks with longing for your judgments at all times. You rebuke the proud, the cursed who stray from your commandments. Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Princes, also sit and speak against me. but your servant meditates on your statutes. Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. My soul clings to the dust. Revive me according to your word. I have declared my ways and you answered me. Teach me your statutes. Make me understand the way of your precepts. So shall I meditate on your wonderful works. My soul melts from heaviness. Strengthen me according to your word. Remove from me the way of lying and grant me your law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth. Your judgments I have laid before me. Cling to your testimonies. Oh Lord. Do not put me to shame I will run the course of your commandments for you shall enlarge my heart This is God's Word psalm, this stanza of this psalm, brings us a step lower than the last stanza. In the third stanza, in verses 17 through 24, we saw a man who was experiencing poverty of spirit, a man who's feeling like he doesn't have in his heart what his heart needs. Now we meet a man who is depressed. Have you ever played basketball and been the victim of man-to-man defense? Every now and then, the other team will have a player who is on you like white on rice. That's close. That's a metaphor for being close. You feel like there's not enough room in your jersey for two people, but he shows you you were wrong. He's just on you. And you say, that was a foul. And he says, I know. He doesn't care. They don't keep track of fouls in pick-up games. No corpse, no foul. And so he's on you, he's sticking to you, and you can't shake him. You run out of bounds and he's there with you. You sit on the bench and he's still with you. He won't let you go. This sometimes happens in football where you're going out for a pass and you can't get free. Somebody is on you. You say, that's pass interference. And he says, I know, that was my intent. I want to interfere with everything you do. Well, that's what the psalmist says is going on in his life. And what's sticking to him is depression. Can't shake it. Now, you know, if you think about the word depress, it's a metaphor for being pushed down. It's what happens to a blade of grass when you step on it. It's depressed. It's put down. And the Bible word, tribulation, that's so common in the New Testament, is a word that means pressure. It's when things get narrow, things get tight. Have you ever been in an elevator with too many people? And you think, I thought this capacity of this elevator was two, and now it's 12. Because people are close, and we get that way with circumstances. We feel pressure. This man says, my soul clings to the dust. This word clings is a word that is first used in Genesis 2.24 where it says, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. We say that nice King James phrase, you're supposed to leave and cleave, married folks, newlyweds. You leave and you cling. You stay close together. You are bound together. This is the same word that's used of David's mighty man, Eleazar, who, when he had been in battle with the Philistines all day long, and it says that his sword was clinging to his hand. It was stuck to his hand. It was glued to his hand. The psalmist says, my soul clings to the dust. Now, you know what dust is? It's snake food. Who eats dust? Snakes do. That's their job description according to Genesis chapter 3. On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust. If someone says to you, eat my dust, he's not offering you an appetizing lunch. If someone says, eat my dust, he's saying, I'm going to leave you in defeat. Dust is a symbol of death. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. And the psalmist is saying, I'm dying. of this depression. Maybe he's given a little poetic license here. Maybe his life is not about to end, but he wishes it were. I'm clinging to the dust. I'm not just kind of having a bad day. I'm down here experiencing what the snakes are supposed to experience. I'm eating it. I'm living in it. And I can't shake it. Now, Sometimes when we're depressed we think we can eat our way out of depression we go to the refrigerator. It's a bad strategy Sometimes we do other things to shake depression to deal with it and the world has dozens of defective strategies now at the risk of being like a little formula a little overly simple sermon is This stanza of this psalm gives us a recipe for what to do when you can't shake it. In 1799, Alexander Hamilton was on a losing streak. His friend Washington was about to die. He had had a tremendous moral failing in his own life that had been publicly exposed to the whole nation. His plan to have a standing army was first accepted and then rejected by President Adams and what he'd given his life to for years went up in smoke. And he was experiencing defeat after defeat after defeat. He was about to lose his firstborn son in a duel. And he was depressed. And when he was depressed, he reacted badly. He said things and wrote things and did things that he should not have said, written, or done. And so when you're depressed and you can't shake it, watch out. There is the real risk of making Very bad decisions when you're down in the dust. The psalmist shows us a different way for what to do when depression sticks, when you can't shake it. And let's track through with his thought process here. Look at the very first verse of this stanza, verse 25, where he says, my soul clings to the dust. Revive me according to your word. Now, I am going to give you a homework assignment. And that is, using just your English Bible, you need to use the New King James for this to work just right, or the King James. But I want you to read through Psalm 119 this week and count how many times he says, revive me. All right? That's your homework assignment. There's only one answer. This is an objective test. Either you get it right or you get it wrong. How many times does he say, revive me? Here's a clue. A lot. A lot. This verb just simply says, Give me life. I'm praying for life. Now, you might say, well, is he dead? No, but he's feeling like it. He's saying, my soul clings to the dust. I'm down here in the dust with the snakes, with the cursed, and I need you to give me life. If you don't give it to me, I don't have it. You may remember the screw tape letters where the senior devil screw tape is instructing his nephew Wormwood in the art of how to tempt a Christian. It's a fictional correspondence that C.S. Lewis wrote. And he tells Wormwood to try to get the Christian, when he's praying, to work up his own feelings, to just feel differently, instead of just asking, God, I feel lousy, give me life, and then waiting for God to act. Do you see the difference there? One is a kind of an atheistic philosophy of, you know, I've got to psych myself up. The other is really depending on a God who really is there and who really does work in your heart. There's a world of difference between the two. You're going to wear yourself out trying to psych yourself up. You're going to experience blessing. If you cry out to God, give me life. That's the first principle of when depression sticks. Pray for life. Pray for life. Please tell me sometime this week how many times he says, Lord, revive me. You can look this up in a Strong's Concordance if you want and Strong's Concordance will tell you a little number. If you look up revive and you'll see a little number and you can go look in the definitions in the back of the Strong's Concordance and see how many times he says, I need life. I need life. Annie Dillard in the book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek talks about a certain vile kind of water bug. You may have heard of this bug. She was looking at a frog and the frog was very beautiful and green, but after a while she noticed that the light went out of the frog's eyes. And then the wind blew and the frog Collapsed its skin just kind of went in and then she saw a dark shape Swimming out from under the frog it was a water beetle that comes up under animals like frogs Injects them with poison and then sucks their insides out what a lovely thing to contemplate It was of water. It was a water beetle that sucks the life out of living things and And the psalmist is saying, that's what depression is doing to me. God, I am praying for life because if you don't give it to me, I don't have it. This puts us in mind of a couple of scenes in the Bible. First of all, keep your bookmark there in Psalm 119 and look back at Psalm 19. One of the main reasons Spurgeon and others believe that David wrote Psalm 119 as he wrote Psalm 19, and he uses a lot of the same terminology. Look at verse 7 of Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul or restoring the soul, giving life to the soul. God does this by means of his word, and he does it other ways as well. Some of you are going through death-like experiences right now We have two families in our acquaintance who are grieving the death of adult daughters this week one died at 29 and the other died at 28 both tragically here in Dallas and They are dying inside and some of you know what that's like right now How will God answer that? I don't know. How will God answer you? I don't know. But there's a wonderful scene, and we covered it in adult Sunday school, a young adult Sunday school this morning, from the book of Ruth. Look at Ruth 4.15. This same phraseology is used as in Psalm 19. Look at Ruth, Joshua judges Ruth. Chapter 4 and verse 15. Naomi has lost her husband. She's lost her sons. She's lost most of her possessions. And then God does something very unexpected and gives her a new son-in-law, as it were, and then a new grandchild, so to speak. And look at what the women of Bethlehem say to her in verse 15. May he be to you, and that may be the grandson or that may be a reference to Boaz himself, may he be to you a restorer of life. I don't know how God will answer you when you pray, Lord, revive me. I believe and know that He will. And He might restore your life through something circumstantial. He might restore your life through His Word alone. He might restore your life through a ministry of Tarot Bible Church. Or He might send a baby into your life. He might send an unexpected relative that you didn't know you had or comes into your family. He might send a revolution, and that's just the thing about praying to a God who's not just inside your head, is that God has a better idea of how to restore your life than you do. I know you probably want to send Him some advice on how to be God and how to, you know, you want to give Him some pointers on how He might give life to the dead, but He's got that. He knows. He's an expert on giving life to dead things. Look at what the psalmist says back in Psalm 119. He says, I have my soul clings to the dust, revive me according to your words. So first of all, you pray for your life. Secondly, he says in verse 28, I have declared my ways and you answered me. So number one is pray for your life. Number two is unpack your life in writing. Here's the second homework assignment. This is gonna get worse. If you are depressed, you need to journal. I'm just going to say that on the strength of this verse, because this word means it's a word from the same where we get scribe or someone who writes things down. If you're depressed, you need to write out why you're depressed and put it out there so that you can consider it and say, here, God, here's what's wrong. I've been emptied. You've taken away from me things that were my life and now I don't have life and you've got to do something about this. Write it out. That's what he's saying when he says, I have declared my ways. Sometimes he says in the Psalms, I was noisy in my complaint. So write it out in a journal and then read it out loud. And maybe you should be alone when you do that. Write it out and then read it to God. and say, here's what's wrong. Look at the very next phrase. I declared my ways and you answered me. Sometimes doubt and dread and depression have their way with us because we don't ever put our finger on what's really wrong. Now, maybe the problem is sin. Maybe the problem is sin in your life. Well, you know what? James 5.16 says, Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. That's not just the priest. That's other believers. Confess your faults. Get it out. He says, I declared my ways. Pray for your life, number one. Number two, unpack your life and unpack it in writing. I have declared my ways. Now, you know, they say hindsight is 20-20. And that's not true. I look back in my life and I still can't see it clearly. Maybe your hindsight is 20-20, but I suspect even that is not crystal clear. But I'll tell you what, hindsight is a lot clearer than foresight. You look back and you write about what's happened, and God gives you insight into what happened, because God understands that pathway better than you do. Look at Psalm 142 and verse 3. Psalm 142 and verse 3, if you turn there. You may understand your pathway and the way that your feet are walking pretty well, but in Psalm 142 verse 3 we get this assurance. Psalm 142 verse 3. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then you knew my path. In the way in which I walk, they have secretly set a snare for me. God knows your path. Or in Jeremiah chapter 10, I believe it is, he said, Oh Lord, I know that the way of a man is not in himself. It's not in man who walks to direct his steps. Man doesn't understand his own way, but God does. I want to check that just to get the, yeah, it's Jeremiah 10, 23, if you're taking notes. Jeremiah 10, 23 and 24. Oh, Lord, I know the way of a man is not in himself. It's not in man who walks to direct his own steps. Oh, Lord, correct me, but with justice, not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. So when depression sticks to you and you can't shake it, You can sit there and take the abuse and just be eating dust with the snakes. That doesn't sound like a good plan. Or you can pray for your life and say, Lord, I'm not going to try and psych myself up into feeling better. I'm asking you to give me life in place of the death I'm going through right now. And while I'm waiting, one of the things I'm going to do is unpack my life. I'm going to declare my ways and see what we find. So he says, revive me, praying for his life. I've declared my ways and you answered me. And then he says a series of things where he's asking for God to open his eyes to understand the scriptures. Look at the second half of verse 28. I've declared my ways and you answered me. Teach me your statutes some of you read the Bible and you You know, it's it's like the guy who was asked why he was beating his head on the wall Why do you beat your head on the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop You know, some of you read the Bible and you're thinking, well, I'm glad that's over. I did my duty for the day. And there's something not happening, not transacting in your reading of the Bible. And what you really have is an eye problem. What you have is a need for God to open His Word to you. You know, there's a song in the Music Man that I won't torture you by singing, but it's, there were birds in the trees, but I never heard them singing. You know what? There are wonders in God's Word, but they're lost on us if God doesn't open our eyes to them. Or like the hymn says, heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweet or green. Something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen. Birds with gladder songs are aflow. Flowers with deeper beauty shine, since I know as now I know what? I am His, and He is mine. You need to ask God what the psalmist asks. You need to say, Lord, teach me your statutes. We need an expert teacher. We need someone who is better than what we can get from human sources. Teach me your statutes. He says it again in a different way in verse 27. Make me, cause me to understand the way of your precepts. You know, when we're depressed, I don't mean to be too hard on us, but sometimes it's because we're off the path. You know, we're so reliant on GPS right now. Every now and then I open up the Atlas just to reacquaint myself with what all those little lines mean. Just in case the satellites crash or the enemy powers block their signal, I need to get reacquainted with an Atlas. And sometimes we need to get reacquainted with the Atlas of our lives because we're off the track. were so easily misled. I don't know if you've read Pilgrim's Progress lately, but in the series we had in Adult Sunday School, wonderful series. It's such a good picture of the Christian life, because Christian is always blundering. He goes off to a path that looks good, but there is a way that seems right to a man, and it's death. Whoops. I need to understand the path. I need to look at the map. Lord, verse 27, make me understand the way of your precepts. So here we have this third principle. Now, I'm not going to tell you ahead of time how many points this sermon has, but it's a lot more than three. But don't worry, we're going to stop at verse 32. This third principle is we need God to, as He says in verse 18, open our eyes to His Word. Pray for understanding, number three. Look at the second half of verse 27. So shall I meditate on your wonderful works. Remember, meditation is not something that the Buddhists invented. Their goal is to empty the mind. The Christian meditates to fill his mind. What was Isaac doing on the evening that the servant brought Rebekah back from Laban's household? He was out in the field meditating. Do you do that? When you're depressed and you can't shake it because it sticks to you like white on rice. You need to pray for your life. You need to unpack your life. You need to pray for understanding of God's Word. And you need to meditate on God's wonderful works. Number four, meditate on what God has already done. Meditate on what He said in His Word. Be intentional in your thought life. My dad used to say, sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. You know, many times that's what we do. We're just kind of sitting there and there's just kind of a buzz, or we're being passive and letting the world fill our thoughts with whatever it wants to fill. But the psalmist says, Lord, if you'll open my understanding to understand your word, I'm going to fill my mind with it. Do you have a discipline of Christian meditation? You know, if you want to prepare for a jaw-dropping moment, if you want to make your friends jaw drop when they said, how was your weekend? And you say, I had a wonderful time meditating. I guarantee they will hear that from no one else at the coffee machine, at the photocopier Monday morning. No one else does that. Why? We're too bothered with noise. We're too bothered with the latest trivia from 1,000 different sources. What about blocking out all that and saying, I'm going to meditate on this stanza of Psalm 119. I'm going to see what fruit God will give me in my thoughts. If depression sticks to you, you can ignore this or you can follow the practice of this saint. He says, my soul will meditate, so shall I meditate on your wonderful works. In verse 28, he comes to another expression of his depression. He says there in verse 28, my soul melts from heaviness. You know what makes things melt? Heaviness, pressure, and heat. Do I need to give a sermon illustration of what heat is? OK, Noah, if you have been alive and had a pulse here in Dallas, Texas this week, and you've stepped outside, you know what it's like to feel your body melting. Well, he says, my soul is melting. It's dripping away into nothing. My soul melts from heaviness, from sorrow, from the weight of what's on me. Have you ever had a Christian friend say this to you, or are we too spiritual to admit it when we feel this way? I say the word spiritual in quotes. It's a false, it's a pseudo-spirituality that's too spiritual to say, I'm melting this week. The pressure, the heat is turned up to a point that that drip, drip, dripping you hear is my soul expiring. My soul melts from heaviness and we see him resorting to strategy number one. Strengthen me or cause me to stand is literally what the Hebrew says according to your word. Lord, make me stand. If you don't make me stand, then I am going to melt away and I'm casting myself on you. Now, When you are trusting God, there's something that feels a little bit passive about that. It's something that feels like you're not doing much, when actually it's the most courageous thing that you can do. Strengthen me according to your word. Now, I want you to consider verses 29 and 30 in tandem, because point number five is to make godly choices. Look at verses 29 and 30. Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me your law graciously. I've chosen the way of truth, your judgments I have laid before me." How many of you know that when you're discouraged, you're very tempted to sin? And the logic goes something like this, and you won't say this out loud, but I'll go ahead and say it for you. You know, I'm a loser anyway. I may as well go ahead and be more of a loser. You know, my life doesn't work out anyway. What does it matter if I throw off the discipline in this area? Or maybe you're like Psalm 73. Surely I've chastened my heart in vain. Surely it's all been a waste of time that I've been disciplining myself and disciplining myself. And look at how low God has allowed me to be brought. I may as well just go ahead and sin. I may as well just throw off the discipline and the holiness and the regard for God and His ways. The psalmist says, I am asking God, take away, and literally the word is falsehood, take away false choices from me and help me make, I'm choosing, good and godly choices. This is what George Herbert means when he says in the often misquoted phrase, living well is the best revenge. In other words, when you are down in the dirt, One of the best ways you can strike back against Satan, against the enemy, is to make God-honoring choices. Now, this is not in the Hebrew. Maybe it's in one of the exotic translations. But I think when Job kept on serving God, it just boiled Satan's goose. It just made him mad. I'm speculating, so I'll stop. But in the midst of being very, very low, there is a precious sacrifice that you offer God when you still make good choices, when you still make God-honoring choices. The enemy says to God, does Job serve God for nothing? Look, you've hedged away around him. Everything he touches turns to gold. No wonder he serves you. And God takes that all away, and Job offers to God something very precious. It's the faith to say, God, I serve you not just because you make everything I touch turn to gold. I serve you because you're good and because you're worthy. And even if my life goes up in flames and turns out to be something that makes people laugh, you're worthy to be praised. You're worthy to be lived for. And though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Because He's good, and He's God, and He's true. And so we can pray with the psalmist, I have chosen the way of truth. Remove from me the way of lying. Grant me your law graciously. That might seem like an oxymoron, like a contradiction in terms. Grace me with your law? I thought law and grace were opposites. No. A person who's born again, a person who loves God says, Lord, your law is a blessing to me. It's a grace to me. And so while I'm in deep depression, while it's sticking to me and my soul clings to the dust, and it's so hot in here that I'm melting, Lord, help me make good choices, because I'm tempted. I'm tempted to sin when I'm down. So number five, when depression sticks, make godly choices. And look at the end of verse 30. If you have a more literal translation that puts extra words in italics like the King James or New King James or the New American Standard, you'll notice that the words before me are italicized because literally what he says is here, your judgments I have placed or laid or put Lord your verdicts on what's right and what's real and what's true and what's trustworthy I've put in front of me where I can't miss them now this may involve a trip to Hobby Lobby to get some new scripture art for your house and But more important than that it involves putting God's Word in a conspicuous place that you can't so that you can't miss it. Have you ever seen somebody who has little instructions taped on their dashboard of their car or little instructions taped on their bathroom mirror or some little regimen or some little mantra that they don't want to forget? Why are they doing that? Because it's so important that they know they need it in their face. You know, why is the military experimenting with contact lenses that project the internet up in the soldier's peripheral vision? It's so that in the heat of battle, instructions can be right there before his eyes. Go right. Ambush to the south. Turn right. They want those instructions on the soldier's consciousness in a way that he can't miss them. And that's what the psalmist is saying about God's truth. He's saying, your judgments, what you say is true, I am going to put right where I can't miss it. I'm going to put it right in front of my face. We need that. Because when we're depressed, we tend to forget things that we really knew were true. And in the dark, we doubt things that we saw very clearly in the light. So he says there, your judgments I have laid before me. Now, it's not an accident that he ends where he starts in verse 31. He says, I cling to your testimonies. You notice the contrast there? My soul clings to the dust, and I'm down here with snake food, eating dust, and I can't shake it. It's sticking to me. And while I'm stuck to things, as long as I'm stuck here, I'm going to stick to something else. And that's the promise that you'll give me life. And that's where courage and faith and hope either happen or they don't. Are you going to believe God's Word or are you going to believe your emotions? I cling to your testimonies. God, when they put you in the witness box and you say, what will happen with my life, You say that I'm going to be shaped to be like Christ. You say that I'm going to be more than a conqueror. You say that you'll lead me in victory and through me diffuse the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in every place. I'm going to believe that when depression sticks. I'm going to cling to that if it's the last thing I do. I'm going to stick to your promises, God. And then he ends with this wonderful verse that comes out of the blue. Over and over again in Psalm 119, he says, I'm not going to, or he says, I'm not going to walk in a false path. I am going to walk in your truth. I'm going to walk in what's right. I'm going to walk in the correct way. I'm going to walk in what pleases you. And then for the only time in the Psalm, he says, when depression sticks to me, instead I'm going to pray for my life. I'm going to unpack my life. I'm going to pray for understanding of your word. I'm going to cling to your promises. I'm going to make good choices. I'm going to do these things that I can do. And look what God does. He says, I will run, not walk, the course of your commandments, for you shall enlarge my heart. I don't know if you've run a road race lately, but for those of you who are still sub-50, running gets harder as you get older. Your knees veto your decision to run. And they say, no you don't. But you know, the psalmist says here, even though I'm depressed, even though my soul clings to the dust, my soul melts with heaviness, I'm not just going to walk your path, God. I'm going to pick up my aching knees and I'm going to run it. I'm going to double down on doing your path, for you shall enlarge my heart." That's a remarkable statement. God will enlarge my heart. You know, I'm done growing physically, except maybe sideways, to quote Pippin. I'm done growing physically, except in ways that are unhealthy. By God's grace, your heart is not done growing. By God's grace, you'll grow and grow and grow in your love for Him and your love for others, and you will be a blessing to those around you. Maybe you remember the description of Scrooge at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. That covetous old sinner. scraping, grasping, clawing, solitary as an oyster. He kept his office cold all year long. It didn't bother warming himself or warming anyone else and then a transformation happens and his heart enlarges and Dickens ends Christmas Carol saying and Scrooge was even better than his word to tiny Tim He became a second father and he knew how to celebrate Christmas like no one else and the best celebration of that good old holiday in the good old world and Scrooge's heart is enlarged and Or maybe you know the problem with the Grinch who stole Christmas. You know that that's not scripture. That's Dr. Seuss. And the problem was that his heart was two sizes too small. The psalmist says. run the course of your commandments, for you will enlarge my heart." Now, let me just deal with a little bit of what might feel like a contradiction here. You mean to tell me that if I run the path, I stay inside the rumble strips of what God's Word says, I'll actually have an enlargement of my life? I thought the Christian life was a narrow road. It is a narrow road, run by people with large hearts. Let me just say, There is a kind of freedom outside Christianity. It's like the freedom of a stomach that's free of food. It's like the freedom of a gymnast who doesn't have a sense of balance. There is a kind of freedom of God's laws that leads to chaos. It is not a coincidence that the freest countries in the world are the countries where God's Word has made the deepest impact. It's where when people have gotten God's Word in their hearts, then it results not only in personal freedom, but in political freedom. What does he say in James chapter 1? But those who look into the perfect law, the law of what? The law of liberty. It's a law that frees the heart to love God and love others. I'll close with an illustration that perhaps you've heard. There was an Olympian in the 1936 Olympics from Torrance, California, the son of Italian immigrants named Louis Zamperini. And Zamperini was part of a relay race. He got on the Olympic team at the last moment. And he didn't win, but his ability to make up distance in the last leg of that 4x400 relay was so remarkable that Adolf Hitler said, bring him to my office. I want to talk to him. I've never seen that kind of resilience in a runner. I want to talk to that man. Well, that man went on and flew for the United States Air Force, crashed in the Pacific, captured, and was subjected to unbelievable tortures. Because he was an Olympian, he was singled out for special torture. And his captors made the other prisoners punch him in the face. one by one, and they abused him, and they abused him, and they abused him. And when he came home, his body was free, but his heart was in prison. And so he began saving money because he was going to go back to Japan and murder the guards from his prison one by one. He was stalking the guards there in the late 40s. And he was going to go back to Japan and murder them all. But as We might expect that vengeance in his heart didn't just direct itself against the Japanese. And when he found himself abusing his own pregnant wife, he realized he needed a change. And he went to Billy Graham's crusade in Los Angeles in 1949, called on Christ to give him life. And when he went back to Japan, it was not to murder his guards. It was to meet with them one by one by one, and all except the worst one met with him. And he was able to forgive them and say, and I wish you would become a Christian. I've got something in my heart that you need. I wish you would become a Christian. And so then in 1998, at the age of 81, they asked him to carry the torch in the Olympic Games. And you know where the torch ran through that year? Japan. And so Louis Zamperini, at age 81, has the torch put in his hand, and he picks up those 81-year-old knees, and he doesn't walk. He runs. And he sees a sea of Japanese faces, joyful. He sees Japanese soldiers clearing the way for him, and he runs as a man who is free. That's what the law of God does in the heart. It enlarges the heart. And so that when depression sticks, we can say, you know, I may be very low right now. I'm eating dust right now. But in the midst of this, I'm going to pray for my life. I'm going to unpack my life in writing. I'm going to ask God to give me understanding into his word. I'm going to ask him to show me his ways and strengthen me. I'm going to meditate on what he's already done, on his wonderful works. I'm going to make good and godly choices. And I'm not going to walk I'm going to pick up these aching knees and I'm going to run the course of His commandments for He will enlarge my heart. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, restoring life to the soul. Jesus Christ wants to give you life. He wants to come into your life. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved, and if you're saved, you'll be given life again, and again, and again, as we go through dark times, and He gives us life that's just a foretaste of that eternal life that's yet to come. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, not only in the next life, but in this one as well, even when depression sticks. Let's pray together. Father, thank you that we can say with Job's old comforter, Eliphaz, when men are cast down, there is a lifting up. And thank you, Lord, that that lifting up comes not from us or from our own resources, but from what you can do. And so, Father, in as much as we partake of this feeling, of this experience this morning, we cast ourselves on you and we say with the psalmist, I will cling to your testimonies and wait for you to deliver me. Thank you, Father, for this testimony. Thank you for others that we know. Thank you, Father, that your law is perfect, converting the soul. And we pray, Father, for the grace to do these things, to make good choices, to call on you, and to meditate on all your wonderful works. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.