Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul? • Mark Severance

Good morning, church.

Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 42. It is a great blessing to be with you this morning. My name is Mark Severance. I'm a member at Grace Church of Rancho Cucamonga. It's a joy to be here. I send greetings on behalf of the brothers and sisters at Grace Rancho. We love you. We are praying for you. We rejoice in knowing what God is doing here in this place. So, um, when you get to Psalm 42, I'm going to read it, and then we'll pray, and then we will dive into what God has for us.

Psalm 42

Psalm 42. To the choir master, a maskal of the sons of Korah.

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the 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? And 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 Mizar. 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, and 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 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 the 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.

Let's pray.

Father, we rejoice at having Your word. You are so kind to give us a written and authoritative and eternal and unchanging word. So Father, as we hear from You today, we pray that our hearts would be humble and submissive and eager to hear and joyful in our obedience. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction

The superscription in Psalm 42 says to the choir master, a maskal of the sons of Korah. Now, a maskal is a song that is designed to teach. A song designed to impart wisdom and instruction. And the sons of Korah were Levites. Now you may remember that Levites in the Old Testament were chosen by God to serve Him in the Tabernacle and then the Temple. And specifically one of their responsibilities was to lead the congregation in singing.

However, in Psalm 42, the context is clear that this Levite, this psalmist is away from Jerusalem. He's not in Jerusalem around the Temple and with the people of God. That's his greatest desire. It's clear that he is longing for that. But at this point, that's not possible. And in addition to that, there's a lot that's uncertain in his life. He's got many questions and few answers. And as we see from Psalm 42 that we just read, his feelings are all over the place. His soul is cast down. That's very clear. He's weeping night and day. He's in turmoil, and there's a growing sense of despair that threatens to overwhelm him.

And yet, in the midst of this, he's fighting for faith. He's fighting to remember that which is most true, that which is eternally true. He's striving to hold on to hope, believing that God will be faithful and a better day is coming. But it's clear that it's a real battle.

Now, we're going to do something that's a little bit unusual here. This is my first time speaking at La Sierra, and we'll see it might be the last, we'll see. But I'm going to read a very loose paraphrase of Psalm 42. If you want, you can just call it the Severance Standard Version. This is not available online or in bookstores anywhere. But the reason that I'm doing this and giving this paraphrase is to try to pull us in a little bit more and to help understand the level of conflict and turmoil that the psalmist is feeling. Now, you can follow along in your Bible if you want, or you can just listen. Again, hopefully, we can get a better sense of the depth of the struggle that the psalmist is going through and then that's going to lead us into our sermon today.

Psalm 42: The Severance Standard Version

So here we go. Psalm 42 in the Severance Standard Version. My soul is longing for the Lord. My greatest desire is to commune with God and to be in His presence. It's killing me to be away from Jerusalem. And I really have no idea when I'm going to be back there. I feel like I'm falling apart. I cannot stop crying. I'm so emotional. I'm so distressed that my appetite has gone. This is what it must feel like to be depressed. And on top of that, I've got people around me all day long, taunting me, prompting me to doubt God's goodness, His presence, and His power.

Well, I've got sweet memories of past experiences worshipping with the people of God, but those memories only serve to heighten my pain. Oh, how I long to be back there. But I'm stuck out here for who knows how long. This is so, so hard. Wait, wait, wait. Insert the record scratch sound. What is wrong with you? Things are bad, but God is not absent. Yes, circumstances are really tough, and it's unclear when they might get better, but there is always reason to hope. Self, don't give in to despair. God is here. He's at work. His favor still rests on you. You can trust Him in your present and in your future.

Now, if you're following along, I'm in verse six now. I'm an absolute mess, but that is the very reason I need to remember the Lord's character and faithfulness, even though I'm a long way from where I want to be with God and His people. But I just can't feel, I just feel like I can't catch a break. I feel as if I'm standing in the ocean and getting pummeled by wave after wave after wave. And just when I feel like I'm on my feet, another one of God's breakers flattens me. I'm just so tired, and I'm not sure how much more I can take.

Hang on though. I know what's true. Yahweh, the faithful, covenant-keeping God has not abandoned me. Every single day He commands His steadfast love to do me good. And at night, when things are scary and seem most uncertain, and when my thoughts and feelings are especially jumbled, His song and His presence are with me. I pray to Him because I know He hears and answers me. God is my rock. He is my refuge. He does not change. His promises are true. And that's why it's so confusing to feel like He has forgotten me. I've been praying. I've been obedient as best I can. I'm trying to make the best of a bad situation, but I just feel like He's forgotten me. I'm feeling abandoned and lost. God feels so distant. And when my enemies ask, where is your God, I know the truth. But I'm tempted to believe that God is absent from my situation. And worse, sometimes I think He's not powerful enough to remedy my situation. And worse still, I sometimes feel as if He doesn't care.

Hold up. We've been here before. You can't go on thinking and talking like this. You know what's true. God is your hope. He is your salvation. This will not last forever. His favor shines on you. Yes, even in the midst of a prolonged season of distress. Trust Him. Really trust Him.

All right. End of the Severance Standard Version. And nobody activated the trap door, so I guess I'm still here, all right? We'll keep going then.

Listen, now some of that may sound familiar to some of you. Some of you may feel like, wait, who's been reading my diary or listening in on the internal dialogue in my brain? We all can feel mixed up in our thoughts and opinions. We're up, we're down, we're trusting, we're having a hard time believing. What a gift. What a gift that God gives us the Psalms. And Psalms like Psalm 42, which give expression to the struggles that we often feel in our heart and in our mind. Some of you have been there, and some of you perhaps are even going through it right now. Struggling with loneliness or discouragement, even what feels like depression, struggling with intrusive thoughts that won't quit or isolation, confusion, a lack of fulfillment. And you wonder if there's reason to keep hoping for things to get better. And you know, sometimes these types of feelings come from a single calamitous event in our lives. And other times, it's more of an accumulation of difficult things over time. And sometimes you just simply are so tired of carrying what feels like the weight of the world on your shoulders. So it's right for us to look at Psalm 42 and ask the questions and say, what should a Christian do? What's a good and wise response for someone who follows the Lord when answers remain elusive, when despair creeps in? What do we do? To whom do we turn? And how do we demonstrate faith and obedience when hope seems lost?

Well, Psalm 42 provides wisdom. It points us to God's wisdom, and more than that, points us to Him. Our Father, our God, who knows us, who draws near to us in our pain and who invites us to know Him more and to rest in Him as our sure hope and salvation.

Amen. Thank you. Amen is right. That's exactly right. So we're going to talk about Psalm 42 in three points today. All of that was introduction. We have three points. First is to recognize the danger of finding ourselves in situations like this. Two is to redeem the questions, and three is to remember your God.

Recognize the Danger

First, we want to recognize the danger. What do I mean by this first point to say recognize the danger? Well, if you've read the Psalms at all, you know that sometimes the psalmist was in physical danger. He talks about being threatened physically by his enemies who wanted to do him harm or even take his life. That's not the case as best as we can tell from Psalm 42. The danger that the psalmist is in is more primarily spiritual in nature, in in in, yes, in nature. He's in spiritual danger. He's isolated. He's away from the people of God. He's confused. He's got a whole lot of questions and not a lot of answers, and that represents a spiritual danger.

Well, how is he in spiritual danger? He's in danger because he's capable of trying to answer difficult questions without reference to God or His revealed truth. I'll say that again. The psalmist is in danger because he's capable of interpreting his life or answering questions apart from what God has revealed in His word. Or said another way, the psalmist in Psalm 42, in the midst of his isolation and pain, he's got the potential to interpret the circumstances of his life based on what he sees and what he's feeling rather than what God has said is true. He can interpret things based on what he's seeing and feeling rather than what on God says is true.

Now, let's consider a few situations in Psalm 42, a few verses, and let's just kind of press into that a little bit to see how easy it would be for the psalmist to answer these questions on his own or make interpretations of his life based on what he sees and feels rather than what on God has said. So, look at verse two. Verse two, the psalmist asks in the second part of verse two, when shall I come and appear before God? Now, he might answer that question something like this. I have no idea. I have no idea. When will I come and appear before God in Jerusalem? No idea. At this point, I may as well be a million miles away from Jerusalem. I could never get there. I could literally die out here and never get back to worshipping God in Jerusalem. And that's really all I want. And I can't understand why God would not want to grant this good desire. Ultimately, I'm praying, and I feel like my prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. The connection that I used to have with God is just not there. That'd be one way to answer that question. That'd be one way to interpret his circumstances, separate and apart from what God has said is true.

Let's look at another example. The next verse, verse three, the psalmist's enemies mockingly ask him, where is your God? Where is your God? And on one hand, the psalmist could say, well, God is in heaven. He's also omnipresent, meaning He's everywhere. But in a special way, He's also present in Jerusalem, in the Temple. And that's where I long to be. That's, I want to appear before God. It's a good desire, a right desire, and yet here I am, seemingly abandoned in all ways. And why is God not showing up for me? And if He's not showing up for me, maybe it's not even worth it trying to follow Him anymore.

Third example, verse four, the psalmist says, I remember as I pour out my soul how I would go with the throng. Oh, happy memories. Happy memories of what used to be. The singing, the people, the joy, the fellowship, the festivals. God was so faithful. We were remembering together His goodness to us. Wow, that feels like forever ago. That is just so, so difficult. And you know, in addition, not only do I feel like God's kind of forgotten about me, but the people of God. They don't write nearly as often as they used to. I get their Facebook updates, and they look like they're living their best life, and here I am, off in this far-flung place, all by myself, so sad, so depressed.

So some of that's a little creative license. You understand that. But the truth is, is that we all have the capability to think and respond to our circumstances in these ways. The psalmist is one example in Psalm 42. We also see an example in Scripture of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19. He is running for his life from Queen Jezebel. He runs a day into the wilderness, and then he pauses and he prays that he might die. This is what he said. He said, I have had enough, Lord. Take my life. He's just had this amazing victory where God showed up in power and defeated the prophets of Baal. And Elijah's about as low as he can be.

And if we're honest with one another, brothers and sisters, we can often be like the psalmist and like the prophet Elijah. We too live in a fallen world. Our hearts and our minds, though they're made genuinely new, can struggle with unbelief. And we too are prone to interpret things incorrectly, based primarily on what we can see and what we feel rather than on the truth that God has revealed to us in His word.

And as we've seen with these examples in Scripture, we're in much greater danger of making wrong interpretations or answering questions incorrectly when we're in pain and when we're in isolation. You know, recently I've had a couple of conversations with some members from my church in Rancho. They're walking through a difficult season in one way or another. One member, uh, who her family is walking through some difficult financial season. They've had a number of months of some financial pressures and just some of the uncertainty that that brings. And she said to me, she goes, you know what, I I think that sometimes I struggle with the fact that I think God's going to punish my family if I do something dumb. Not like sinfully rebellious or on purpose just walking away from God, just kind of being human and blowing it, and that God's going to punish her family. Another gentleman I spoke with, whose life circumstances have made it more difficult for him to gather regularly with with the saints, said to me, you know what, I think I I struggle. I think I've made a mistake in joining in membership at Grace Rancho. I think it'd probably just be easier and best if I just resigned my membership and and and went somewhere else.

Well, as a kind and compassionate pastor, I looked at both of them and responded, really? You think that? You believe that? I think I was probably a little bit more sensitive than that. But the truth is they said, kind of smiled, acknowledged it and go, yeah, I know. I know. Like, it doesn't really make sense. It's not true. But yes, I do think that. And I struggle not to believe it. And again, if we're honest, we can all find ourselves thinking these things and struggling tempted to believe things again, based on what we see and feel rather than what God has revealed.

Now, um, this is true in any circumstances of life, but especially when we find ourselves in these Psalm 42 type situations where we're struggling and answers are slow to come. We're in danger. Just like the psalmist, we can be in spiritual danger that we need to recognize. Um, I like nature documentaries. Does anybody here like nature documentaries? Sharon, you do? Yeah, right? Planet Earth and some of the others that just are an amazing window into God's power and glory and creation. Well, just picture with me that we're watching a nature documentary, and a group of antelope are grazing peacefully in the African plains. You can picture it with me, right? So peaceful, so serene, just enjoying the goodness and the provision that God's provided for them. And all of a sudden, the music changes. Gets dark. Gets ominous. You know where I'm going, right? The camera pans to a pack of hyenas, planning the hunt. And then we watch as the hyenas circle and attack, and then what happens? One poor antelope gets separated from the rest of the pack. Terry, you don't even want to think about it. It's so sad. I know. The poor, solitary antelope becomes dinner for the hyenas, right? Yeah.

Well, listen, we sort of look at that and we go, oh, that's so sad. But it happens inevitably. It's always the poor antelope that gets separated from the rest of the pack, right? That becomes easy pickings for the enemy. Well, I bring that up because we're like that solitary antelope sometimes and becoming real spiritual danger and become easier pickings for our enemy when we're in pain and we're in isolation.

So, what are we going to do? How do we grow in fighting for truth? One of the ways that we have to grow in fighting for truth, rather than just giving in to what feels easy, providing our own answers or our own interpretations based on what we see and feel, is that we have to get better at confronting ourselves. We have to get better at confronting ourselves. And you say, well, what do you mean, Mark? Psalm 42 provides an amazing example of the psalmist confronting himself in verses 5 and 11. If you want to look down there, verse 5 and verse 11 are pretty much identical verses, he says this, why are you cast down, O my soul? He's talking to himself. Sometimes that's concerning. In this case, it's a good thing, right? We ought to talk to ourselves. We ought to confront ourselves. Why are you cast down on my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? In effect, the psalmist is saying, hold up here. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Pause here. What's really going on in my head and in my heart, and why is this happening?

Do you ever do this? Do you ever talk to yourself? I mean, not like in the weird way, but like in what was modeled here in Psalm 42. To say, hey, self, let's sit down and have a little chat. Rather than just listening to yourself or trusting that you're answering the questions correctly, we need to get better at confronting ourselves. Uh, biblical counselor, counselor Paul Tripp says this, here's what you need to understand. No one talks to you more than you do. You're in a constant conversation with yourself. And the things that you say to you, about you, about God, about life, shape the way you live. It's really, really true. So he goes on. He says, and sometimes it's very important to be aware of what you're thinking and to step back and confront those thoughts, these thoughts that can sometimes discourage you, to weaken your faith or bring doubt about who God is, and then shape in a wrong way the way that we live.

So, when we're willing to confront ourselves, we can more easily recognize things we believe that aren't true and fight to believe what God says is true. So, confronting ourselves provides an opportunity to gain important insight into what's really happening in our hearts. Sometimes questions that begin with why are especially helpful. Things like, why am I so angry? Why am I so fearful? Why do I so badly feel the need to control this thing in my life? Why am I filled with self-pity? Why am I so slow to pray? Why do relationships in my life keep blowing up? And why do I find myself repeating the same patterns of sin over and over?

So this concept and practice of confronting ourselves is really important. Our pastor, Pastor Eric Durso, a few years ago preached a message on Psalm 42 called Listen Up Self. And provided a whole sermon on the importance of and the practice of confronting ourselves. I'd commend it to you, uh, if you want to know more and to get better at practicing. Now, I'm going to finish up point number one, and we're going to go on to point number two, but before I do, I can't leave point number one about recognizing the danger without reminding all of us how crucial it is to embrace the gift of your local church in difficult times.

Listen, confronting yourself, it's a good start. It's biblical. We ought to do that. But you need your church family. You need your church family. So here, just let me exhort you specifically. If you're struggling, don't wait to ask for help. Don't let embarrassment or shame keep you from being honest with a brother or sister. Don't trust your own ability to interpret your life correctly. Don't worry about being a burden to others. Any of you worry about being a burden to others? Yeah, yeah, go ahead and you can all just raise your hands. That's fine, right? We all worry about that. We should not worry about it. We should be quick to ask for help. Don't wait until a struggle has blossomed into a full-blown crisis. Don't be like that solitary antelope. Recognize the danger and receive the help you need. Okay, so that's point number one. Recognize the danger of being in a painful or an isolated situation, and then our tendency, and we get really good, it's not even any work for us, to provide answers to the to our questions based on what we see and feel rather than on what God says is true.

Redeem the Questions

Point number two is redeem the questions. Redeem the questions. In the previous point, we talked about the danger of making wrong interpretations or being too quick to answer our own questions. Now, we want to consider the flip side where the unanswered questions or the difficult situations and trials we find ourselves in provide an opportunity to reveal new insight, new insight about God, about His world, and about our own hearts. And we all need fresh insight that is based on God's truth. The uncertainty in our lives is an opportunity for us to grow if we're willing to humbly accept what God wants to teach us. So we want to consider how we can redeem these questions that maximizes our opportunity to learn and to grow.

But let's be honest, it's 2026. We don't like to wrestle with questions. We want immediate answers. We've had Google for 25 years, and now we have AI, right? AI can answer any question for us immediately. That's what that's what some think. The truth is, regardless of what year it is, regardless of what technology is available, we would be really wise to submit to God's wisdom from the Psalms and other biblical wisdom literature about wrestling with difficult questions that defy easy answers and immediate answers. Because if we're willing to wrestle with these questions and seek to redeem them, it's an important opportunity to not just seek God's wisdom, but to seek God Himself.

So, in Psalm 42, there's seven questions in these 11 verses. Five unique questions, two of them are repeated twice. Verse two, the psalmist wonders aloud to himself, when shall I come and appear before God? Verses 3 and 10, the psalmist's enemies tauntingly ask him, where is your God? Verses 5 and 11, as we've already talked about, the psalmist confronts himself with important questions, why are you cast down on my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? And then in verse 9, the psalmist asks God, why have you forgotten me, and why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? And you know, in each of these cases, on a human level, these questions defy easy and immediate answers. And if the psalmist is being honest, he could probably answer, I don't really know the answer to any of these questions. We we know what that's like in our own lives when when we are faced with situations and when we're walking through trials and we go, we just don't have any answers. We have a lot of questions, very few if any answers.

Things like, when will these symptoms go away? Why is this happening to me? When will that person I love trust Christ as savior? What is God doing in this situation? How will any good come from this tragedy? When will I ever catch a break? Will the darkness ever lift? You see, from God's perspective, redeeming the questions means seeing the uncertainty as an opportunity to grow. It means shifting our perspective away from how can I get answers to these questions as quickly as humanly possible and move on with my life. Instead, we ought to ask in this season, when answers are slow to come, what does God want to teach me right here and right now? How can I walk by faith versus walk by sight?

Yes, of course, I'll ask God and turn to Him, looking for wisdom and for answers. I'll ask Him for healing. I'll pray in faith for a resolution, but I'll be content with unanswered questions for as long as God ordains. And we can do so in faith because we have a God who wants to use difficult seasons. Yes, even deep and dark and prolonged seasons of uncertainty and trial to teach us, to shape us, and to grow us into the people that He wants us to be. There are so many ways that we can redeem the unanswered questions in our lives. We're going to talk about two primary ways that we can redeem the questions and see God work in new ways in our lives this morning. So the first is growing in humility. Growing in humility. Unanswered questions remind us how little we know. They remind us that we're not as strong as we think we are. They remind us how little we actually control our lives. For all the ways we seek to plan and organize and yes, try to control our lives. There's just so much that we can't control. We can't stop the aging process. We can't prevent a heart attack. We can't force someone to reconcile us with us. We can't magically put money in our bank account. We can't create a child. We can't always just be happy, and the list goes on. That's because we are not sovereign. We are not God. And this should humble us and should cause us to turn to God in prayer, the God who is sovereign, the God who listens and answers our prayers.

We see this in Psalm 42, as the psalmist not just confronts himself, but then cries out to the Lord in verses 8 and 9. You see, we pray differently when we don't have everything figured out. We pray more desperately when we don't feel in control and the future is uncertain. When the mighty hand of God is pressing in on us, when questions go unanswered for a long time, and trials continue without letting up. We've got a unique opportunity to humble ourselves and turn to Him, turn to God as the answer.

Pastor and theologian, Dr. Timothy Keller went to be with Christ in 2023 after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Post diagnosis, he was very honest about the difficult trial that he was walking through. And though he knew that the cancer would most likely kill him, he rejoiced to see the ways that God was working in his life. He said this about his battle with pancreatic cancer, it's instructive to all of us. He said, I hate this. Talking about cancer. I hate cancer. But I would never want to go back to the prayer life I had before pancreatic cancer. I hate cancer. I hate it. But I would never want to go back to the prayer life I had before God gifted this to me. That's instructive for us, and trials are designed by God to change us. And if we're willing to trust Him in the midst of it, we see the kindness that it is infused into the trial and our opportunity to grow. When we see how weak we are, how dependent we really are, then we have the chance in new ways to see how mighty and how powerful our God really is. When our lives feel very unstable and unpredictable, we're able to know God as our rock in fresh ways. Like the old hymn that we sing says, when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. And it's in those types of moments that we're able to see with greater clarity and to experience in a more profound way that when we are weak, that He is strong. We're able to see and experience God's sustaining grace in ways that we've never seen before. That He gives more grace and that His grace is sufficient.

I I love how this is expressed in the old hymn, He Giveth More Grace. The first verse and the chorus go like this. He, this is God, giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater. He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. To add to affliction, He addeth His mercy. To multiply trials, His multiplied peace. His love has no limit. His grace has no measure. His power has no boundary known unto man. Listen to this. For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again. That's our God. So, unanswered questions should grow us in humility and they can also help us to grow to love the gospel of Jesus Christ even more. So, redeeming the questions, we can grow in humility by the grace of God, and we should grow to love the gospel even more.

In the midst of deep suffering, deep suffering, the psalmist declared twice with defiant faith, verse 5 and 11, soul, hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. As we consider the trials in our lives, the unanswered questions and the brokenness of the world we live in, it's an opportunity for us to rejoice in God and in our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is our sure hope, our complete and eternal salvation. So we can redeem the questions, redeem the struggle by clinging to Christ, who defeated death, in His life, death, and resurrection, and now ever lives to intercede for His children. The uncertainty of our life and our unanswered questions should compel us to love the gospel more. Christ really has been raised. He really walked out of that tomb. His kingdom is really coming. We really do have an eternal, perfectly joyful home with Christ. This world is not our home. But when things are going well, we all tend to get pretty comfy. We can start to live like this is the world we were made for, and heaven can seem distant, even unreal. But the burdens of this life make eternal realities clearer in our hearts and in our minds. And the unanswered questions help to wean our hearts away from the lesser joys of the world and toward eternal joys that are only found in Christ. That's why the gospel is such good news. That's why Christ is so precious. In Christ, all our questions are ultimately resolved. He is our wisdom from God, and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

So I'm going to ask a series of questions here, to which Christ is the answer in every single one. I hope it encourages you to love Christ more, to love the gospel more, and to cling to Him. Here we go. Do you have questions about who created you? Look to Christ. It was by Him that God created the world. Do you have questions about how you can have your sins forgiven? Christ is the answer. He shed His blood on the cross, taking the payment that you and I deserved. Do you have questions about how you can be righteous before a holy God? The answer is Christ. He alone lived the perfect life that God required, earning righteousness on our behalf. Do you have questions about life after death? The gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Do you have questions about how to have peace with God? Christ is the answer. We have peace with God through Him. Do you have questions about how Christ's perfect life and death can be credited to you? The answer is by grace through faith in Christ. Do you have questions about dying and what comes after that? Well, Christ was raised from the dead, and His resurrection is a foreshadowing of the future resurrection of all those who trust in Him. Do you have questions about persevering through hard times? Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the one who completed His race with joy and enables us to do the same. Do you have questions about how to quiet a guilty conscience? Christ is the one who is our righteous advocate before the Father. Even now, He is praying for His children. Do you have questions about the hopelessness or the despair in the world or in your soul? Christ is the king, who will return to right every wrong and establish His reign of unending peace and righteousness. Do you have questions about trials that just won't seem to end? Christ is our great high priest, who invites us to come to Him and receive the mercy and grace that we need each and every day. Do you have questions if God will continue to love you, given your inconsistent track record? Listen to the words of Romans 8:38 and 39, which say, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do you wonder if God will keep His promises? All of His promises are yes and amen in Christ.

Remember Your God

So how do we respond? Well, if you're here today and don't know Christ, if you've not yet trusted Christ as your savior, I exhort you, repent of your sin and trust in Christ today. He invites you to come to Him. Do not delay. Stop trying to make sense of your life apart from Him. Stop trying to provide your own answers to those questions that you have. Surrender to King Jesus. And for the believers here, don't miss the opportunity that unanswered questions present. Redeem the questions. The uncertainty, even the hopelessness or the despair that you feel. Let them lead you to grow in humility, to greater trust, to more dependent prayer, and to stand firm on the rock that is Christ. Let the questions lead you to Christ, the ultimate answer to your every question.

Uh, Jason Gray is a Christian songwriter, and he wrote a song called Questions. The chorus goes like this. It was in the desert that I learned to thirst for you. It was in the storm where I found love to pull me through. It was in the fire where your faithfulness was proved. So I can rest in the wrestling with the questions, cause they lead me back to you.

That brings us to our third point, which is remember your God. Now, this point has been implicit in our first two points, but we're going to hit it again because it's so essential for all of us. Remember your God. Verse 6, Psalm 42, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, I remember you. When we're going through it, when we're in despair, when we've got questions with no easy or immediate answers, we must remember our God. When there are no answers, He is the answer.

Now, this word remember is really important. It means much more than, oh yeah, that's right, God. Like, that's sometimes how we think about the word remember. But in Psalm 42, the the word remember is much more meaningful than that. This is what it means. To keep something at the forefront of your mind so you can act on it. To keep something at the forefront of your mind so you can act on it. So this you see, this is much more than just keeping facts in your brain. Remembering means holding truth at the ready so that you live differently because you really believe it. So we can remember that God is our God. If you're a Christian today, you can say with the psalmist, he is my God. That's theologically correct. He is my God. So we can turn to Him in every situation. We remember that He's a generous God, a God who gives good gifts. So even when it's hard, and we don't feel like it, and maybe it takes a little bit more work to remember His blessings, we do so, and we thank Him. We remember that our God is a promise keeper. He is a God of steadfast love. He always, always, always keeps His promises. So we can really trust Him. And we remember that He is our greatest joy. Like the psalmist reminds us in verses 1 and 2, he says, more than anything, I just want to be in God's presence. I just want to commune with Him. We're reminded in Psalm 16 that He is the one in whose presence is fullness of joy. So even in the hard times, even in the dark times, we cling to Him as our greatest treasure.

Now, how are we going to get better at remembering our God? We're so quick to forget. We so easily default to old patterns of thinking and behaving that don't remember Him and don't hold fast to the truths in His word. Well, let's just recommit to knowing Him in His word more and more. To read it, to meditate on it, to memorize it, to hearing it preached on a regular basis, to singing it, listening to it, studying it as often as we can. That's the that's the only way that we're just going to fill our minds with the truth of who God is and what He's done. But I also want to challenge you. Think more specifically about a specific circumstance or a particular way in which you're tempted to forget God, or if it's hard to remember His character, or His promises, or His track record of faithfulness in your life. And as you think about that, to say, what are specific verses or scripture passages that I can go to, that I can wear out my Bible, that I can memorize, that I can underline, that I can go back to again and again and again? That I'm creating ruts in my mind to where it's much more reflexive to go to God and His word than kind of my old patterns of just thinking about how I can figure everything out on my own. I just encourage you, maybe after the service or at lunch, or later today, as you have conversations with people, maybe make that a question. To say, how can I remember the Lord, remember my God, very specifically, in these specific ways where I struggle to do so. I want to grow in that in remembering my God, holding these truths in my mind and living in light of that.

Now, what's a good example in Scripture of this? Certainly Psalm 42. Outside of that, I want to call your attention to Lamentations chapter 3. You don't have to turn there. That'll probably take several minutes because Lamentations is like sandwiched in between two really, really major prophets. But if you want to, Lamentations chapter 3, verse 17. Now, Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations in the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. So, Jerusalem was destroyed. Many of the people in Jerusalem were taken to captivity in Babylon. On the scale of terribleness for Judah and for Jeremiah, this is about as bad as it gets. It's about as bleak of a set of circumstances as you can imagine. And in Jer and excuse me, in Lamentations chapter 3, verse 17, Jeremiah is recounting his feelings, his honest feelings in the midst of great pain and despair. He says this, he doesn't pull any punches here. My soul has no peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. My endurance has perished. So has my hope. My soul is bowed down within me. Right? You feel it. You you can just read it and feel it with him. Really, really difficult.

In verse 21, he says something so instructive to us. He says, but this I call to mind. But this I remember. I'm actively and intentionally bringing truth back to mind. In the midst of all that I see around me that is unimaginable on its scale of suffering and devastation. I'm steering my thoughts back to God. I'm remembering my God. I'm not going to give in to what I'm feeling. I'm fighting to remember what is true about the Lord and to live in light of that. But this I call to mind, and he says this, and therefore, I have hope. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. And then he goes on to say, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. This is what remembering the Lord looks like. In the midst of really big problems, we remind ourselves, we call truth to mind. We actively and intentionally preach truth to ourselves that our God is really big, bigger than any of our problems or our trials. And when we have no idea what the answers are to the big questions in our lives, we remember that He alone is the answer.

Now, in this fallen world, difficult questions are pretty much a guarantee. Pretty much a guarantee. How we need the Lord's help. May He guard us from the danger of answering questions without reference to His truth. May He strengthen us to redeem the questions in a way that leads us toward greater humility and love for Christ. And may He grant us grace to remember Him and look to Him as the answer in all circumstances.

Let's pray. Father, how grateful we are for Psalm 42. How grateful we are for the fact that Your word provides a window into our soul. Father, we ask that Your Holy Spirit would apply these truths. Not just generally, but in very specific ways to our hearts. Lord, we want to grow. We want to remember You. We want to honor You in all seasons, and particularly as we learned about today, in difficult seasons of trial, when we just don't have the answers. So, help us we pray. Give us the grace that we need, and may we joyfully yield to whatever You call us to do. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Benediction

Amen. Let us respond in worship if you can stand with me, please. We will respond by singing All Glory Be to Christ. As we just talked about, He is the answer to all of our questions. And so we will sing these truths about Christ. So that'll be hymn number 133. All glory be to Christ. Hymn 133.