Hope for the Discouraged #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Your faith is to be active. In the midst of your discouragement, you have a responsibility in which you are to act and that you are to do something. There is something for you to do in the midst of it.

And that's what we're going to see as we go to our second point. The remedy for your discouragement. The remedy for your discouragement. How does the life of faith, how does the life of faith of being a Christian, inform the way that you respond to deep discouragement? And here's where you have to become your own best preacher. Your pastor can't do this for you.

A radio teacher cannot do this for you. You are the one who has to take responsibility and deal with yourself in this way. Circumstances may explain your sorrowful feelings, but you as a Christian can't go further than that. You are not condemned to live under the weight of discouraging circumstances without any remedy for your soul. There may be legitimate reasons for your sorrow. Write this one down.

This is one of those little pivot phrases. There may be good reasons for your sorrow, but there are even better reasons for you to have hope. There may be good reasons for you to be downcast. I'm isolated. I'm under attack.

Life has changed badly for me. That's a good reason to be discouraged, in one sense. But beloved, as a Christian, as a Bible-believing, born-again Christian, saved by the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have a better reason for hope in the midst of your circumstances than you do to be discouraged, and you need to call these things to your mind. This is exactly what the psalmist teaches us to do in verse 5.

Look at it with me. Notice how he starts to speak to himself now. In verse 5 he says, Why are you in despair, O my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me? And then he gives himself, he gives his own soul an imperative. He says, Hope in God, for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence. He says, he takes himself in hand. It's as if he's looking at himself in the mirror and talking to himself and addressing his own heart. And he says, Why are you in this downcast position? Why are you in despair?

It's as if he's waking his soul up, rousing it out of its discouraged slumber, and said, Wake up and remember what your whole existence is about. He says, You hope in God. Hope here not being the way we use it in English. Well, I hope I win the lottery. I hope I find a million dollars. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. No, hope, biblically speaking, is a confident expectation.

Let me slow down here. The fast guy was started to talk again. Hope is a confident expectation that is based on the character and promises of God. God has revealed himself in his word. He has made known to us what he is like. He has told us what he is going to do in the future. He has explained to us clearly and infallibly in Scripture what it is and how it is that he deals with his people.

And he deals with them well all of the time, even though they might go into some valleys along the way. That's who God is. Now, verse 5 here implied in verse 5, I'm going to give you a 25 cent theological word here. Verse 5 is premised on the immutability of God.

Immutability being a theological term which means that God is unchanging. God does not change. He does not go and come and differ in the way that he is. He is consistent with his being. He is consistent with his attributes. He is consistent with what he has revealed himself to be. Beloved, this is the anchor that holds your soul in the midst of discouragement. The immutability of God is the great lifeline to your soul that you grab hold of when the waves are coming over your spiritual head. Here's what it means. We've said these things like this a lot.

We'll say it this way this time. Beloved, even in the midst of your worst discouragement, even in the midst of the present despair of your soul, God always acts consistently with his wisdom, with his holiness, and with his love. God is perfectly wise. He knows everything that there is to know.

And watch this. He knows the best way to bring you from where you're at to the place of his blessing. He knows what he's doing as he deals with your life.

Absolutely, without exception. You might not understand it. You might stagger under the weight of it. But how does a football player get stronger except that they lift weights that press against their muscles and the strength has to rise to the occasion? How is it that a soul grows stronger except against the resistance of contrary forces? God is wise to know how to build your soul up, to strengthen you for what lies ahead. God is perfectly righteous in the way that he deals with you also. Look, God would never do you wrong. The mere thought of that, the mere thought that he would is incorrect.

It's not right. God would never do anything unrighteous, would he? God would never violate his righteousness in his dealing with you.

Would it even be possible? Would it even make sense that the Lord Jesus Christ would redeem your soul with his own blood at Calvary only to turn around and deal unkindly and unrighteously with you? That's absurd.

That makes absolutely no sense. That would violate the whole purpose of redemption for Christ to do that in his dealings with your soul. No, he would never act unrighteously with you. He would never act unwisely with you.

And let's say one other thing as well. This is where people in our camp, I think, are most prone to fall short and to miss and to minimize or neglect a certain aspect of God as they're going through their trials. 1 John 4, 7, and 8, God is love. God is love and it's because of his love that the Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary for you. Greater love has no man than this and that he laid down his life for one of his friends. The whole fountain, the whole source of your spiritual life is found and rooted in the eternal love of Christ for your soul.

Look, that doesn't get suspended during your trials. It is operative at all times. The love of God is always operative in your life, even in the midst of your worst trials.

Always. The holiness, the righteousness of God, he's always dealing with you in a righteous way. He's always dealing with you in a loving way. He is always dealing with you in a wise way. Now, how does that have anything to do with your present discouragement, Christian?

Here's what it has to do with it. When the psalmist says to his own soul, hope in God, he's saying have a confident expectation that the outcome of this present discouragement will be a full manifestation of the wisdom, righteousness, and love of God for your soul. You know God to be like that, therefore expect him to deal with you in perfect consistency with his revealed attributes because he can't do anything else. The God of truth cannot lie. The God of love cannot deal unkindly with you.

The God of omniscience can't make a mistake. And so, in the midst of your discouragement, you look at yourself in the mirror as it were and you say you hope in God. And this takes spiritual effort, especially under the weight of chronic problems that never go away, of chronic relationships that just weigh on you.

I understand that. And if you're in that position, it is all the more imperative, it is all the more necessary for you to gather up the spiritual energy and tell yourself, no, I will hope in God despite everything that is around me. I will walk by faith, not by sight. And see, as a Christian, my brother and sister in Christ, as a Christian, look, the eternal God who first saved you and blessed you and you had those early days of joy in your Christian experience, he hasn't changed. He hasn't shifted.

Your circumstances have, but he hasn't. And beloved, if he helped you in the past, if he rescued you and saved you in the midst of your sin and rebellion against you, beloved, isn't it obvious that his intention is to continue to help you and bless you going forward now that you're a child of God? The spiritual logic of Scripture and the spiritual logic of the way that he deals with our souls is inescapable. And what you are to do in the midst of your discouragement is to say, I will lay hold of that, I will trust in that, I will hope in that, even though there's nothing circumstantial to reinforce it in my life. I will trust in God no matter what.

What's he doing here? Look at verse five with me again. He says, why are you in despair, O my soul? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence. He says, you hope in God. In the midst of this despair, you hope in God because what lies ahead in the future is another round of praise to God for the way that he's helped me. And this is so certain, this is so certain that you appropriate it as a present reality even though the experience of it is still future to your soul.

And that is where you root your confidence. It's rooted in his revelation found in Scripture. And for us in the New Testament, it is confirmed by the shed blood of Christ for sinners.

We are in a position of strength even in the midst of our worst difficulties. It's that God that he's calling to mind. Look at verse six as we need to speed things up a little bit here. Verse six, he says, Oh my God, my soul is in despair within me, therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Herman and Mount Mizar.

Herman being the northernmost mountain range of the land of Israel, he separated from Jerusalem. He's geographically removed and he says, I'm remembering you from this location that is far from the central place of worship that you appointed for your people. He's far from the temple and he feels far from God.

And notice this. Well, let's look at verse seven. Before I say that, verse seven, deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls, all your breakers and your waves have rolled over me. What he's saying here is it's like one deep wave is calling to another deep wave to come and combine their forces in overwhelming him in the midst of his difficulty. His troubles are calling upon him repeatedly.

They're falling upon him again and again, and it's just like a waterfall drowning him in the midst of it. That's what his spiritual experience has been like. And in the midst of that desolation, in the midst of that difficulty, look at the ringing statement of faith that he makes in verse eight. He says, the Lord, this time using the divine name Yahweh, the God of covenant, faithfulness, and loyalty to his people. Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and his song will be with me in the night. A prayer to the God of my life. He's saying, God, even in the midst of these overwhelming repeated chronic trials, God is going to command his loyal love to bless me in the end, and that is my ringing statement of faith.

I will not surrender that ground even in the midst of these trials here. He recognizes that God is still sovereign in his sorrow. He confesses the faithfulness of God. And beloved, here's what you need to grasp hold of in the midst of your discouragement, despair, and anxiety. God's loyal love to you means this. God's loyal love to his people means that a time of praise, a time of reversal of your discouragement is certainly coming. And what the call of faith is, is to thank God for that now.

To express your hope and confident expectation in that, even though there is nothing circumstantially to prompt you to say that. You can say that because your faith is built not on the circumstances of your life, not on prosperity or money or anything like that. Your faith is premised on the unshakable foundation of the revealed character of God in his inerrant word. Amen. That's why you can have hope. That is the remedy for your discouragement. Now, in the midst of this, the present extended hardship for the psalmist, it seems like the circumstances are inconsistent with that confession of faith he just made.

Look at verses 9 and 10 with me. I will say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me while they say to me all day long, where is your God?

What's happening here? It seems like he circled back into the despair and depression, doesn't it? He's back into the mourning after he's made these great statements of faith, he's back in the mourning.

He's cycling again, so it seems. Beloved, your own life experience tells you how to be able to understand this. He had said in verse 5, hoping God, verse 8, the Lord will command his loving kindness. So he starts out discouraged, he rises to faith and he comes back down, why am I going about, my adversaries are reviling me all day long. Don't you know by personal experience the fact that as you're going through these long trials that you have times where you're strong, you're confident, and then another wave hits and knocks you back and you're discouraged again?

Don't you know that by personal experience? Well, he's the same way, we're of like flesh with the psalmist. And so it's not that those setbacks mean that the original statement of faith was insincere or not real, it simply means that you come right back to the same point and you fight the same battle in your soul again. That's what he does in verse 11, when he comes right back to the same place. He started out weak, he rises in faith and confesses his confidence in the loving kindness of God. Another round of discouragement comes, and he fights the same battle again with the same weapons. Look at verse 11. Why are you into despair, O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God. You see, and here there's two things that I want to say as we close here, very practical that I hope will be helpful to you. First of all is to recognize this.

This is so helpful. First of all is to recognize that to deal with chronic discouragement, to deal with a deeply rooted despair in your soul, you're not going to deal with that one time and live happily ever after. That is not the battle of faith. You fight this battle, you affirm your faith, and don't be surprised if a half hour later or three days later you're back having to fight it again. That is not a sign of weakness. That is not a sign of defeat.

It is not a sign of insincerity. I say this to encourage you and strengthen you. It is simply a sign that the battle is real and that it is difficult.

And any study of any war would show that there had to be a sustained offensive against an enemy before victory could be declared. Don't be surprised if in your spiritual battles that you're fighting the same thing again and again. You still come back to the same place. Hope in the immutable God who is a God of wisdom, righteousness, and love, and who never fails his people. That's always the answer that you go back to. Secondly, this remedy for depression.

This is a challenge, but a good one. It helps you see where I believe the battle lies. This remedy for depression that we're talking about, this remedy for discouragement, is more than simply renewing the outward motions of your quiet time.

It is not, this is not simply saying, okay, I've got to read my Bible more and I've got to pray more. It's deeper than that. It's more significant than that. It's more meaningful than that.

Those things help inform it, but what this is talking about is something different. It's recognizing, coming back to what we said before, you have to preach to yourself. In other words, what this is about is not you going through the motions of a spiritual discipline. It is about you in the seat of your deepest affections and convictions about life, affirming to yourself what you know to be true about God's loyal love, his wisdom, and his righteousness.

You come to this point. You say, what kind of man, what kind of Christian woman am I going to be? What is going to define my inner man? And you say, what's going to define my inner man is I believe God for what he's revealed himself to be, that he's a God of wisdom, righteousness, and love. I believe that when Christ died on the cross that he loved me by name and shed his blood for me by name, and that he set his affection on me never to take it away.

That's what I believe. And because I believe that, I am going to, with all of my being, from the deepest source, the deepest wellspring of everything that I am as a person, I'm going to entrust myself to that and be confident and rest in the assurance that the outcome of my life and the outcome of my present discouragement will be an abundant manifestation that God was faithful to me just like he said he would be. That's a lot different than saying, read your Bible more, isn't it? This is leading us into what the convictions of life are going to be. And as you shape those convictions, you use your mind to speak to your emotions. You say, this is the truth that will govern the way our life goes.

This is the truth that will define the way that we view life. Not emotions responding to circumstances, but the whole inner man responding to the revealed character and promises of God with trust, certainty, conviction, and rest. And from that position of strength, you speak to yourself, you preach to yourself, and you say, soul, hope in God for the help of his countenance, the help of my countenance and my God. Hope in God for the day is coming when you will praise him effusively for the wonder of his faithfulness to who he said he was and what he's done for you in Christ.

Hope in God you can never go wrong. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, I pray for the brothers and sisters in Christ that are so faithful to be here and that you've brought to be with us here tonight, here in the room and over the live stream as well, for those who will somehow hear this perhaps in future media. Father, we pray for a deep work of your Holy Spirit deep within our hearts that would supernaturally help us, supernaturally enable us to grab hold deeply of these convictions about your love, wisdom, and righteousness.

And to let that set the course about the way we think about all of life and the way that we respond to discouragement and despair. We thank you that you are a gracious God to us, that in the Lord Jesus Christ we have a Savior who is sympathetic with our many infirmities. We are weak and frail creatures of flesh, O God, seeking to love you and to live for you in the midst of a hostile environment and with a heart that so easily wanders into unbelief.

Have mercy on us. Have mercy on these here that deal deeply with discouragement, with despair, with anxiety that never seems to let loose. Father, may you bless them. May you encourage them. May the wonder of your character, faithfulness, and love be like the rise of the sun upon their souls, shining light and warmth where darkness and cold had once dwelled instead. O God, you are our God, and we will ever praise you and rest in you. Father, we know that the one who believes in you like that will never be disappointed. And resting in your wisdom, righteousness, and love, we go forth now in the name of our Lord Jesus.

Amen. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us here on The Truth Pulpit, and I just wanted to let you know of an additional ministry that you may want to take advantage of. A few years ago, over a period of years, I taught through all 150 psalms, generally doing one message per psalm, and we turned that into a separate podcast for all of those messages.

It's titled Through the Psalms, and it goes through all 150 psalms over a course of about three years. And if that's something that you would like to use and benefit from, you can go to our website and find the podcast link and subscribe there. That's at thetruthpulpit.com. Once again, that's through the Psalms podcast. You can find it on our website at thetruthpulpit.com. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.