Will Life Ever Get Better?, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian, J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You're joining us in a study of Psalms called Question Everything, and today we're diving into an important issue that a lot of Christians are afraid to address, how to talk to God when we're feeling abandoned, overwhelmed, or maybe even angry. I'm sure you've been there, so is it okay to tell them that? Is it okay to even feel that?

Or are we supposed to put on a happy face and recite how good he is, even if that's not how we feel? To answer that question, Pastor J.D. takes us back to Psalms for part two of a message he titled, Will Life Ever Get Better? Will life ever get better? Maybe you feel like that this weekend in your life. Maybe you're wondering, how is this dark chapter ever going to end? Maybe you're just bored, and you're like, is life ever going to get better for me? Is it ever going to be different?

Or maybe you're on the other end of the spectrum. Maybe life is really good for you now, but there's this fear in your heart that this can't last, and I know that things are going to fall apart. I'm going to get the phone call.

Something bad's going to happen. Psalm 88, verse one. Psalm 88 is our Psalm. Lord, you are the God who saves me. Day and night I cry out to you. Verse three, I am overwhelmed with troubles, and my life draws near to death.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit, God, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me.

You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken me from my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape. My eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, Lord, every day, every day I spread out my hands to you. Why, Lord, why do you reject me and hide your face from me?

From my youth I have suffered and been close to death. I have borne your terror and I am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood. They have completely engulfed me. You have taken me from friend and neighbor.

Darkness is my closest friend. The end. And all God's people said, what the heck, right?

I mean, that's it. That's the last verse. God chose to include this psalm in his Bible.

Why? Because sometimes our lives feel like that. But we don't know the specific condition the psalmist is in. We can tell that it involves personal betrayal, verse 18.

Friend and neighbor of deserted me have become repulsive to my closest friends. Have you ever experienced that kind of pain? And then there's the loneliness.

As I've talked to people who've gone through intense, sustained times of pain, they say one of the worst things is the loneliness because even people that love you just can't understand what you're going through if they've not gone through it themselves. The psalmist feels like God even cannot understand. In fact, if anything, it seems like God is against him. He keeps saying throughout the psalm, Lord, you did this to me. Verse 15 summarizes the psalmist's feeling. I'm in despair.

Despair means not only am I in pain now, despair means I have no hope it will ever get any better. This guy is way past the question, will life ever get better? He is resolved that it will not. And then he ends the psalm.

He puts a period. And we all sit here looking at it saying, what in the world? But then look at how Psalm 89 opens. Psalm 89 verse 1, I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. With my mouth, I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.

Verse 8, you are entirely faithful, O Lord. You rule the oceans. You subdue their storm-tossed waves. For Jewish people at the time, the ocean was the great unknown. And a hurricane at the ocean was like the uncontrolled power. You, God, control the uncontrollable. Verse 10, you crushed the great sea monster. Scholars say this was a reference to Egypt, Israel's great enemy from across the sea. You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. Everything in the world is yours. You created it all.

You created north and south, Mount Tabor, which marked the western boundary of Israel, and Mount Hermon, which marked the eastern boundary of Israel. Verse 21, the Lord says, I will steady him with my hand, with my powerful arm. I will make him strong. The enemy shall not outwit him. The wicked shall not humble him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. I will extend his rule over the sea, his dominion over the rivers. He will call out to me, you are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. No, I will not break my covenant with you.

I will not take back a single word that I have said. How are these two Psalms placed side by side? See, here's what Psalm 89 assures you.

I'd encourage you to jot these things down. Psalm 89 assures you, number one, that God's steadfast love rules over everything in your life. He rules the raging sea, verse 9, which represent life's most chaotic elements.

This for you would be the cancer cell, the unexpected job loss, the sudden departure of your spouse, the random accidents. Number two, God's steadfast love is not always immediately apparent to us. You see, the Psalmist in Psalm 88 cannot see any evidence of God's steadfast love. Even in Psalm 89, he would say this, verse 46, oh, Lord, how long will this go on? Are you going to hide yourself forever?

So you can't always see it. Sometimes you may never see it in this life. And if your faith depends on seeing the resolution of your faith in this life, you're never going to make it. You are a crisis of faith walking around waiting to happen. Number three, God's steadfast love shapes the glorious conclusion of his plan.

Think about it. You could already, most of you, if you've been a believer for any amount of time, you can already look at some of the chapters in your life that were the most painful in which you could not understand what was going on. You could already look at those and see how God was working something good in your life, can't you? The divorce taught you to depend on God. The struggle with the addiction taught you how much you were in need of grace, the death refocused your faith, the lost job woke you up out of a life of materialism.

Well, here's the question. If now, with only a very limited perspective and limited wisdom, if already you can see a reason for some of the pain in your life, don't you think that given enough perspective and God's wisdom, you will see a reason for all of it? All Psalm 88s prayed long enough eventually turned into Psalm 150s. And in order for you to experience the joy of Psalm 150, see, sometimes you got to go through with Psalm 88.

Number four, we behold God's steadfast love for us and the rejection of his anointed one. You see, around here, we say that you can summarize the gospel in four words, Jesus in my place. It's not just that Jesus died for the sins of the world. He died for my sins. I was on his mind when he died on the cross. It was my transgressions, my rebellion, my pride, my impurity that put the nails in his hands and his feet that gladly he went to the cross for so he could suffer the penalty in my place.

He was rejected in my place. He went through Psalm 88 in my place so that I would never have to be rejected and go through that. So when I feel like God has forsaken me, I'm wrong.

I have to be. If Jesus did not abandon me in the dark hours of the cross, would he ever leave me now? Christ has defeated every sin so I can cast all my burdens upon him. And if he suffered the full penalty for my sin in my place, can anything in my life now be considered judgment? Because, see, if I've received Jesus, there's no more wrath left for me. There's no more payment. There's no more penalty.

There's no more anger. There's no condemnation for those of us that are in Christ Jesus. Therefore, suffering now is not God's judgment or anger on me because that was poured out on Jesus. Suffering is part of God's, listen, good salvation processes in my life.

Tim Keller says it this way. Suffering is at the heart of the Christian story. Suffering is the result of our turn away from God. And therefore, it was the way through which God himself and Jesus Christ came and rescued us for himself. And now, it is how we suffer that comprises one of the main ways that we become great and Christ-like, holy and happy, and a crucial way that we show the world the love and the glory of our Savior. You see, even suffering in the hands of an ever-loving, omnipotent Father becomes a surgical tool for God's good purposes in our lives.

Which leads me to number five. In the midst of pain, in the midst of pain, we experience God's steadfast love for us and his steadfast presence with us. The psalmist would say this, verse 15, happy are those, there's that word again, it's our third week with it, Hebrew, ashrei, happy. Happy are those who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord. You see, what the psalmist has that can never be taken away that gives him joy is the presence of God. I love how David would talk about this in Psalm 3.

David in Psalm 3 opens a psalm by talking about his problems. Oh, Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Look at this, but you, O Lord, you are a shield about me.

It's one thing or around me. It's one thing to have a shield in front of you, which is where you typically keep a shield. What happens when you have a shield in front of you and somebody attacks you from the behind, right?

So when you have a shield around you, that means they can't attack you from the front, the back, the left, the right, the up, the down, because you're covered everywhere. In other words, God, you protect me from the north, the south, the east, and the west. There's not a single direction that anything the enemy can bring at me that will separate me from your love because you have covered me and you are a shield about me. You are, he says, my glory. Notice he didn't say God is giving him glory, but that God is his glory. Knowing him, possessing him, that is glory.

Here's a question for you. Is glory something you want God to give to you or is glory something that God is to you? When you think about God giving you glory, are you talking about him giving you a better marriage, a new job, personal vindication, or is glory simply knowing God that he is your glory?

Christ in us, Paul would say, that's the hope of glory. So when my outward man perishes, I can rejoice because my inward man is renewed day by day and I can know Christ through these sufferings so that I can think that it's not even worthy to compare what suffering is happening to the outward man if the inward man is coming to know Christ because that is my glory and that, he says, you are the lifter of my head. Though my head is bowed down with suffering, the presence of God, God reaches down and he lifts it up and he says to me, do not be afraid when you pass through the water. See, I will be with you and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned because I am with you and nothing can ever happen to you that I will not turn into the miraculous through you.

It's like a father, he says in Psalm 89, who looks with compassion on his struggling, heartbroken child and just reaches down and gently lifts his head. He says, don't be afraid. I'm not going to let anything happen to you.

I'm never leaving your side. I'm going to make everything okay. That is what gives us the assurance that all these things are working together for good in our lives. Thanks for listening to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. If you want to know more about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com. You know what? We appreciate you. Yes, you are listeners.

It's an honor for us to be able to be a source of encouragement for you each day. And did you know that you can follow Pastor J.D. on social media?

Why not get some biblical insight as you scroll? Just search for Pastor J.D. Greer on Facebook, at Pastor J.D. Greer on Instagram and at J.D.

Greer on X, formerly known as Twitter. Follow along on all your favorite social media platforms and stay up to date with this ministry while filling up your timeline with encouragement from God's word. Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor J.D.

Greer right here on Summit Life. Brad Hambrick, our pastoral counselor here, wrote a great article on Rome. He called it The Dilemma of Romans 8.28. Romans 8.28, if you're not familiar with it, is a verse that Christians quote a lot where it says, all things work together for good.

He said the dilemma is that sometimes in the midst of suffering, that verse almost sounds trite. Oh, all things are working together for good. It's all going to be happy. Everything's going to be fine.

It doesn't feel like that. He said, but what happens is you don't read the two verses before that, which is what makes it feel trite. The two verses before that say that God has given us his spirit who has united himself to our spirit, listen, who searches our hearts and makes groanings on our behalf which cannot be uttered.

Searches is the word for explore. What it means is that the Spirit of God is in your heart searching the deep caverns of your pain and expressing them on your behalf to God with words that you don't even know how to utter. In other words, he can put things into words that you do not even know how to articulate. This is no distant God who promises us that one day it's all going to work out. This is a God who has united himself to us in our pain and feels that pain with us and his presence in us, Paul says, assures us of his good plan for us because you can be sure that he will never leave you or forsake you. And if you know that he will never leave you or forsake you, then you are assured that he will accomplish the good purposes he has determined for you. His presence in me assures me of his good purposes for me. And so when I cannot grasp his plan, I can cling to his presence. And when I do not understand what he is doing, the Spirit inside of me reaches up and says, Abba, Father. And the Spirit of God lifts my head and says, put your head up because this that I have worked in you will lead to exactly what I have said it will lead to, not a word will falter. Number six, in the midst of pain, we are right to pray for the in-breaking of God's steadfast love. In the midst of our pain, we're right to pray for the in-breaking of God's steadfast love. The Psalmist in Psalm 89 calls out on God to act, and he expects God to act. He's like, God, change the situation.

Help me now. You see, some Christians act like suffering has no place in a believer's life. But other Christians act like it's wrong to ask God to release you from suffering. Almost like you should delight in it and rejoice in it and you just want it.

Both are completely wrong. I know that suffering can be part of God's good plan for me, but I want to see God's goodness break into my family. Why? Because I'm a dad and dads love to see goodness poured onto their kids.

God is a dad. I want to see goodness break into this church. I want to see goodness break into your lives.

I want to see it break into your families, into this community. You see, as believers, we are commissioned not only to endure suffering, we are commissioned to bring blessing, which means we look at broken places in the world and we say, it's not right that those people live in poverty. It's not right that those people are captive. It's not right that those girls are still trapped in the sex slave trade. It's not right that these children don't have homes.

It's not right that these families are broken. God, won't you do something? And we lay hold of the goodness of God, and we believe in it, and we yearn for it, and we pray for it, and we work for the end-breaking of that love everywhere we can, beginning with our families and our church, this whole community, and in every nation we can get to on earth. Sometimes we live in Psalm 88, but we do so with the hope of Psalm 89. Let me share with you a letter from a woman who has gone through what I consider to be her own Psalm 88.

I want you to listen to how she walked through this. If you, she says, had asked me what I was thankful for before September of last year, I would have said that I'm thankful for my family, my home, my job, and for the love of God, for a husband who loves and cares for me, for four children, age 14, 11, 9, and 5, who are all healthy and happy, for a home I never dreamed I could have had, for a career that not only fulfills me but allows me to work from home, but in October, my Christian husband, completely out of the blue, left me and our children for somebody else who left her husband as well. This other family were friends of ours. We had vacationed with them on three separate occasions.

I thought she was my closest friend. She goes on to talk about the disputes with her husband, the court battles, the devastation to her kids. Now, a year later, my husband is still gone, still with his new family, and he has told me that they will be a part of my kids' lives and that I need to just get used to that and not hate her. My kids are still dealing with the impact that their daddy left. They are depressed, angry, confused, and frustrated. My oldest has started questioning his faith. He is rebelling against all authority. He is lashing out at his family. My house is now up for sale, a short sale, which will likely turn into a foreclosure and win.

And if that happens, we have no idea where we will move. And yet, in the midst of all this, I've come to know God on a different level, to see him work in a way that I'd only heard about. You see, I'd never really had a big tragedy in my life, never really had to depend on God. I mean, sure, I prayed about my problems and I saw God work, but never like this. I never had the need to really rely on God to just fall into him and rest on him. When I needed God's comfort before, the image in my head was me clinging to Jesus and him hugging me.

My image now is me just completely collapsed and him carrying me. And it is awesome. In the midst of this horrible situation where my whole identity and where my family has been attacked, I see glimpses of what God is doing and how our lives will be changed. And I get excited to see who I get to be at the end of all this. She uses the metaphor of being in a race. She's like, it's like you're running in a race when all of a sudden rain begins to fall, a torrential rain, and then it creates this huge mud puddle, this mud pit between you and the finish line. You can't go around it.

You got to go through it. She says, and every step becomes painful and you don't know how you can go on. She says, you want to give up. She said, but then you look up and you can see the finish line. And she said, it's like at the finish line, there's like at the end of a car wash, a rinse that you go through that just cleanses you from all the mud. She says, and right beyond that is the glorious sun. And she says, that's what I'm excited to be able to get to because the person I will be there will be stronger with more understanding of how to run this race, with more knowledge of God, and with satisfaction and peace.

Yes, I am tired. But I'm also energized by the experience. I can't wait to learn more from the Heavenly Father. I cannot wait to use what God has taught me.

I have explained it to my children like this. In every fairy tale, there's always a tragedy. And the protagonist faces that adversity, overcomes that adversity, and thrives because of it. God is giving each of us our fairy tale. What do you see at the end of your life? What do you do when you feel like life is never going to get better?

Jot these down. Pray Psalm 88 to God. It's OK to pray Psalm 88.

It's OK. In fact, you want to jumpstart a boring prayer life? Why don't you write some of your own Psalms to God? Do not think that He is going to be afraid of your anger, or your tears, your doubts. He welcomes those things.

You want to know how I know? Because you put Psalm 88 in the Bible. So why don't you just be brutally honest with God for the first time in your life? Pray Psalm 88. Write a lament. This can actually be an act of faith, by the way.

Because in writing the lament, you're saying, God, somehow, I think your love is deeper than all this. Pray Psalm 88 to God. Preach Psalm 89 to yourself. Preach Psalm 89 to yourself.

Here's three statements I want you to learn to make in the midst of a Psalm 88. I choose not to fear, because God is with me. I choose not to doubt, because God is in control. I choose not to despair, because God is good.

Notice saying, I choose, means it's probably not how you feel. I feel fear. I feel doubt.

I feel despair. But I choose not to fear, not to doubt, not to despair, because God is with me, God is in control, and God is good. You see, people say, where's the faith in Psalm 88? It's in the fact that the psalmist put it where he put it, because he put it right before Psalm 89, showing that even in our darkest hours, God is transforming the story of our lives into total praise. So pray honestly, Psalm 88, and then preach Psalm 89. And by the way, if you're in a Psalm 88, don't rush to Psalm 89. Sometimes you just got to sit in Psalm 88 for a while, until you're ready for the hope that's in Psalm 89. And if you're with a friend who's in the midst of Psalm 88, do not start beating them over the head with Psalm 89. Sometimes you just have to sit with them in Psalm 88 for a long time. But you do so, you do so with the hope, with the anchor of Psalm 89. Our only true hope in the midst of sorrow is Jesus. And thankfully, His word gives us wisdom and direction in times of struggle. Today's Summit Life message is part of a series called Question Everything.

To catch up on previous messages, visit us at jdgrier.com. This week, we'll wrap up this particular teaching series called Question Everything, and we'll roll right into a new series specifically on Psalm 23, one of the most beloved chapters in the Bible. And to go along with that, we'd love to get this month's featured resource into your hands. It's called Goodness in the Middle, and it's a deeper dive into Psalm 23. I'm sure that you've heard Psalm 23, and you might have even committed it to memory.

But what does it really mean, and how does it apply to your life? We think this is an incredibly important study, and we're so excited to get it into your hands. We'd love to send you a copy with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry. Simply call us at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or head to jdgrier.com.

That's J-D-G-R-E-E-A-R dot com. And as always, thank you, thank you, thank you, especially to our gospel partners for your generosity. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and tomorrow we're getting into another pressing question.

Does my life have a purpose? So grab a friend and listen Wednesday to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.