INTRODUCTION

In 1992 I finished my 15^th year as a staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ. For 15 years I spent my days and nights sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with college students. My life was comprised of talking about God or preparing to talk about God on most days during those 15 years. Yet, in 1992, I mostly read the Bible to teach the Bible, not to know God better. I prayed at prayer meetings I was required to go to but rarely on my own. God was seldom in my thoughts. I did not read or pray or think about him because I found little pleasure in knowing him. What I enjoyed was playing basketball, watching my sons play basketball, going hunting, spending time with my family and friends, working on projects around the house, reading novels and watching TV. I was faithful in my work of teaching and counseling and leading because I love to work and to work well. Being a Christian and being a Christian minister had little in common in my life. I was a good minister of the gospel. I was not a very good Christian. There was a growing awareness in me that there was something fundamentally wrong with me and my approach to the Christian life. I knew that I could not continue living with such a huge gap between what I was telling others about Christ and what I was actually experiencing with Christ. God knew I couldn’t keep living that way as well. In his mercy he intervened in my life that year.

There are many ways that God got my attention. He used a friend to help me. He used the daily experience of talking with others about Christ and the Bible. He used a growing frustration with my condition. But mostly he used the biblical study and teaching of other men through the books they wrote. I would like to mention two of the things that God showed me that transformed my life that year. First, the Scriptures everywhere tell us that God does all things for the glory of his own name. In other words, if we ask why God does anything that he does in creating, sustaining and saving the world, the ultimate answer is so that his greatness will be known and loved and admired. The second thing God helped me to see is that everybody always seeks their own happiness. As Blaise Pascal, the famous French theologian said, "All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every person, even of those who hang themselves." Whatever you or I do, we do it because we believe that doing it will make us happier than not doing it.

John Piper put these two concepts into one simple sentence that was like an explosion in my mind when I first read it. "God is most glorified by us when we are most satisfied with him." In other words, God’s desire to be glorified and my desire to be happy are not at odds with one another. The greatness of God is shown in the joy of his people in him. Life is about God. It is about knowing, loving, enjoying, obeying and worshipping him. Life is not about jobs or families or hobbies or building churches or fulfilling the Great Commission, but about God. My biggest problem in life and your biggest problem in life is that we don’t really believe what I just said. Or to quote C.S. Lewis, "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

What I discovered is that Christianity is not about doing your duty but about doing what you delight in. God is infinitely better and more satisfying than the most exquisite pleasure you can imagine on earth. So living the Christian life is learning to abandon my pursuit of pleasure in the things of this world apart from God and learning to pursue my pleasure in God. What I’m saying to you is not some weird teaching of a few modern Americans. Rather, it is what the Bible teaches from beginning to end. It is what the church taught for hundreds of years. It is the stated purpose and mission of our church. Our purpose is to display the greatness of God by declaring his greatness and serving others for joy and his honor. So we are going to spend the next several weeks looking at what it means to pursue our pleasure in God and how we are to go about it. Psalms 42 & 43 are a clear statement of God’s intention that we pursue our pleasure in him. They also show one of the primary ways he works to make sure that we seek our happiness in him. The outline this week is different in that each point is a clause in a sentence that will be completed only at the end of the sermon.

As is true in many of the psalms the author tells us about his state of mind before he tells us how he got there. I want us to first examine the state of his soul and then I want to show you that he is feeling exactly the way that God wants him to feel. Then we will examine how he got into this condition. In the third point we will look at what he does to escape this condition and we will end by noting the ultimate purpose behind this entire experience.

First lets look at the condition of this man’s soul. The imagery he uses is quite striking and severe. It is the picture of a deer, living in the desert of southern Israel during a time of drought. The deer has searched its usual watering holes and they are all dry. Now it stands in the blazing sun with its tongue hanging out, panting, frantic for water. A small breeze comes out of the east and wafts across the deer’s nostrils with the faint scent of water. The deer begins its search by following that faint trace on the wind. It minds nothing else. It does not turn to either side. It is oblivious to the terrain or to the presence of predators. It keeps its nose in the wind and seeks after the one thing necessary for its survival, water.

This, says the psalmist, is the condition of his own life. He is dying of thirst, not for water, but for God. He is on the brink of death because he has not drunk from the river that is God. He is not thirsty for what God gives, not forgiveness of sins, not heaven, not freedom from worry, not Christian fellowship, not a Christian wife, not health, not wealth, nothing but God alone will quench his thirst. The question he asks at the end of v. 2 is the summary of his ambition and passion. Most of the translations don’t really give the force of the language. He literally says, "When can I go and see the face of God?" Like an infatuated young man he will not be satisfied with a picture, with a phone call, with an email, with a letter. His desire will only be satisfied when he sees God.

Have you ever been thirsty? I mean, really thirsty? As many of you know, we have had a stomach flu go through our house the past two weeks. Nothing was sadder than when our little two year old, Jaimee had it just before Christmas. She was so thirsty after throwing up for half a day that she was beside herself with thirst. She cried non-stop. She pleaded with us for juice and ice. There was nothing that any of us could do that would distract her from her desire or comfort her. It was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do to tell her she couldn’t have anything to drink because it would make her sick. After we got medicine into her to stop her from vomiting she frantically devoured one Pedialyte "freezy" after another. Justin had it this past week and after he was better he commented that he couldn’t believe how good an ice cube tasted. Getting to suck on an ice cube was more pleasurable than anything he had ever done.

Now notice in v. 3 that the psalmist responds to his thirst the same way our little Jaimee responded to her thirst. He wept because of his thirst for God. He could not eat but could only weep over the anguish of not "seeing God". His sorrow is made even more profound by the mocking of some unnamed individuals. The taunt they make is in the form of a question, "Where is your God?" This question presupposes that the psalmist has publicly identified himself as a believer. Also, it presupposes that either he is behaving in a way that calls his profession into question or something is happening to him that calls into question God’s love and power. It could be that he is very sick or perhaps has been injured in a battle. It could be that he is acting very morose and gloomy, not like a happy Christian. It could be that he has sinned in a public way. Whatever the circumstance the people around him see his behavior or his condition and they taunt him with God’s absence. Not only is God hidden but others mock God’s absence. It reminds me of typical movie scene. A kid has been bragging to his friends that a famous person, like Mark McGuire, is his friend and has promised to join him and his friends for a friendly game of baseball on Saturday. The boy shows up on Saturday and all his friends are there eagerly waiting to see Mark McGuire but he never shows up. So his friends start laughing and mocking him. They say things to him like, "Where’s your buddy Mark? I suppose he’s spending time with your other friend, Michael Jordan, huh? What a loser. Mark McGuire would never be your friend."

His sorrow is made even worse as he remembers better days. He remembers that he used to go with the people of God to the temple to worship God every Sabbath day. He remembers the joy and dancing and singing that characterized that happy throng of people. There’s nothing that can make your sadness over the absence of one you love greater than the happy memory of their presence. I’ve not lost a parent yet but as I’ve talked with those who have they have told me that it is the happy memory of their parent that often prompts the greatest feelings of grief. So it is with the psalmist. As he remembers those days of happy fellowship with God in the company of God’s people his grief and despair intensify.

In verse 5, out of his desperation, he begins to talk to himself. He asks his soul a question. Then he gives his soul an answer. As we will see this self-talk doesn’t immediately get him out of his despondency but it is the beginning of the solution to his despair. He is essentially rebuking himself for not hoping in God. He has allowed the external circumstances of his life to overwhelm him and has lost sight of what is truly necessary. When we are sick or when our relationships have gone sour or when we have lost our job or when we’re being persecuted for our faith it is so easy to fix our attention on the problem and hope in a solution to the problem rather than in the Lord. The psalmist, in the midst of his despair knows that while he is in a tough spot, the real problem is that he isn’t hoping in God. The NIV makes a mistake in translation at the end of v. 5 that you can see if you compare it to the NASB or the KJV or the RSV. The Hebrew doesn’t say, "my Savior". It says, "the one who saves by his presence". This is so cool. What he is saying to himself is this. "Self, why are you so upset? There is no need for this despair. Hope in God, not in getting well or being liked by people because he is the one who saves by his presence." In other words, he is like a little child who wakes up in the middle of the night, frightened by a nightmare and begins to cry until his mother or father shows up and picks him up and hugs him. He is helped, saved by the mere presence of his parent. In the same way the psalmist knows that what he needs is God’s presence, not the solution to his problem.

I am persuaded that God has the psalmist exactly where he wants him. The difficulties he has experienced and the desperate thirst he has for God are what God wants for him. The next section makes this very clear.

The struggle to escape from the despair that consumes him is very apparent in this section. He has just rebuked himself for not hoping in God but then he cries out, "O my God, my soul is downcast within me." He knows what he needs to do, hope in God, but the emotion of despair is so great that is all he can think about. Like a drowning man he sinks under the despair. But then he pulls himself back to the surface and determines to remember God. What he says here is rooted in his knowledge of God. This is what he is saying at the end of v. 6, "I’m going to remember God, I’m going to draw near to him now, right here. God is not limited to Jerusalem, to the temple. He is present everywhere. Even if I were on the top of Mt. Hermon or in the valley of the Jordan river or even as far away as Mr. Mizar, I can remember God. I can find him because he is everywhere. He is not bound by time or space." This is an important point. It’s so easy for us to get into our day and feel like we can’t seek God because we didn’t read our Bible in the morning. "I didn’t kneel beside the couch and pray and then read my bible, so there’s no point in praying today." "I didn’t make it to church this week so I guess God won’t listen to me this week. No point in trying now." Part of his despondency is due to his inability to go to the temple to worship and so he forces himself to think theologically. God can still be found if he will but remember God right where he is at because God is everywhere.

Verses 7-10 are the record of what happened as he set out to remember God right where he was at. What does he remember? Verse 7 is amazing because of v. 1. In verse one he is longing to drink from the river that is God. But when he sits down to remember God what he remembers is how God has judged people with water. He sets out to find God as a refreshing drink of water but instead discovers him to be a raging flood bent on destruction. The phrase "deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls" calls to mind Genesis 7: 11-12, "…on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." Then, "all your waves and breakers have swept over me" is a standard description of people who are in trouble in the Psalms. The prophet Jonah said this exact thing from the belly of the fish as he reflected on the experience of being thrown overboard by the sailors. "You hurled me into the deep into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight…’"

Do not miss what the psalmist discovers when he sits down to remember God. He discovers that God sent all the trouble he is having. Notice it says, "your waterfalls, your waves and your breakers". What he remembers is that God sends trouble on his people. You’ve got to remember when you read these psalms that these authors were people of this book. They knew the stories of God’s dealings with Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This man knows what Joseph said to his brothers when they came to him in fear that he was going to kill them for what they did to him. Joseph said, "Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." This man knows what David said when he was forced to flee from Jerusalem because his son, Absalom was leading a coup against him. As he left the city, Shimei walked along the road and threw stones at him and cursed him and one of David’s bodyguards wanted to go kill him. So David said, "My son, who is of my own flesh, is trying to take my life. How much more than this Benjamite! Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to."

Look at verse 8. He is remembering God and what he sees is that all his trouble is from God but then he sees what all God’s people see, God is sending the trouble because of his great love for the psalmist. "By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life." There is so much hope in this verse. If only we could live in the reality of what is being said here. Look back at v. 3. Tears are his food day and night. But now in v. 8, God’s love and the joy of his salvation is what the psalmist sees day and night. It is the trouble that causes the tears that he now sees as the love of God. There is a verse in James 1 that I memorized as a young Christian that never made any sense to me. It says, "Consider it all joy brothers when you encounter various trials…" How in the world can you be happy when you are in trouble? If you remember that God is sending the trouble for your good, because he loves you. This is the entire argument of Hebrews 12: 4-14. "Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?" If you are a child of God then you can count on God sending you hardship because he loves you and desires your good.

This is another one of those things that God mercifully revealed to me beginning back in 1992 that served to rescue my from my hypocrisy. God is sovereign over all the details of my life. God sends everything that happens to me for my good, because of his love. This doesn’t mean that the trouble I experience is pain free trouble. It does mean that I am able to seek God in the midst of the trouble because I know he has sent it. That is exactly where the psalmist goes. Look at vv. 9-10. This is the prayer that God gives him as he reflects on God’s sending the trouble out of love. See how the knowledge that God sends the trouble does not breed a passive fatalism but rather emboldens the psalmist to ask God what is going on. There is a detail in v. 4 that the NIV does not translate that helps us to see the progress that the psalmist is making. Verse 4 is supposed to say this, "These things I remember as I pour out my soul within me or to myself." In other words in v. 4 the psalmist is overcome with despair and is completely introverted in his response. He is having a pity party. He pours out his soul to himself. But in v. 9 he speaks to God his Rock. He knows that God is his rock and so he pours out his soul to him. This helps us to see that these questions are not the questions of accusation and pity. Rather they are a statement of his confidence that God is going to deliver. They are a request to understand what in the world God is trying to teach him in the suffering. "You are my rock. This I am certain of. You are the one who is sending me this trouble. Now, why are you doing this? What is your purpose in sending this great suffering upon me? God you need to know that I am in mortal agony. I am mourning and I feel cut off from you. What is it that I am to learn from this? Why are you doing this? Why do you send these foes to taunt me?"

I’ll never forget when the Lord gave me a clear taste of this process. He gave me a neighbor who hated me and who tried to intimidate me and my family. Many of you will remember this story as I’ve told it before. His hobby was building stereo systems in cars that when played, rattled the windows of our home. He did not appreciate my requests to not play these systems at night and after I called the police one night he continually did things to intimidate us. I lived in fear of him. Going out the door of my home required courage because I never knew what to expect from him. This was while I was in seminary and I’ll never forget trying to study one afternoon and I couldn’t because my heart was so full of fear. I knew that just as God had sent Shimei to curse David so God had sent my neighbor to curse me. That afternoon I opened my bible to Psalm 118: 5-9 which says, "In my anguish I cried to the Lord and he answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes." So my prayer was for God to deliver me from my fear by giving me hope in him. It was only in the crucible of my anguish that I learned that God is sufficient. That he indeed is my hope. My need was not deliverance from my neighbor but to be able to find God in the midst of the trouble. God sent the neighbor so I would seek him and find him.

I discovered what the psalmist says at the end of v. 11, which again the NIV mistranslates. He again talks to himself but he ends his self-talk a little differently than he did in v. 5. You can see the NIV’s mistake if you compare it with other translations. The end of verse 11 says this, "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, the one who saves my countenance and my God." In verse 5 he knows that God is the one who saves by his presence or more literally, by his countenance, his face. In verse 11 he knows that God is the one who saves his countenance. This is such a remarkable difference. In verse 5 he knows God’s saving presence as a theological truth. In v. 11 he knows God’s saving presence as a personal reality. In v. 11, after remembering that God has sent the trouble out of his love and after seeking God’s purposes in the suffering and telling God about his suffering he knows that God is saving him, that the God of creation is his God. There is so much joy and assurance in knowing that the evil that is being done to you comes from the hand of your loving Father and is designed for your salvation. Do you know this reality? You will never find peace until you discover that the trouble in your life comes from God and is for your good. You will never know that he is saving you, that he is your God, unless you remember…

We are running short on time so I won’t be able to give you the details of this Psalm. It is quite obvious that this psalm is a fitting climax to the prayer of Psalm 42. Notice not only the similar content but the repetition of the refrain in v. 5. The Psalmist moves from remembering God’s presence in the suffering and inquiring as to its purposes to bold prayer. In v. 1 he requests that God rescue him from the taunts and persecution of the wicked people who are intensifying his pain by their mocking. In v. 2 he asserts his confidence in God being the only source of strength and security in his life. In light of God’s being his stronghold he again inquires as to God’s purposes in sending the trouble. Then he expresses the central request and desire of his heart in vv. 3-4a. This is what I want us to concentrate on for a moment.

How is it that God will quench his thirst? How is it that God will rescue him from the wicked enemies that oppress and taunt him? If God will send his light and truth to guide him to the place where God dwells, then his thirst will be satiated and he will be rescued. There are three things I want you to notice in these verses. First, he cannot find his way to God’s presence on his own. God must send his light and his truth. These alone will guide him and cause him to go to the place where God dwells. Again, remember the picture of v. 7. He is in the midst of a raging storm on the sea. All is darkness and all is chaos. He is drowning and unable to rescue himself. He cannot find his way. So God must send forth his light and truth and they will rescue him. They will bring him to God. Second, the means of rescue are God’s light and his truth. What is this talking about? Light in the Psalms most often refers to God’s manifest presence, his making himself known to his people. Psalm 27: 1 says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation." Just look down the page to Psalm 44:4, "…it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face…" that drove out the nations before Israel. Psalm 78: 14 gives us the closest reference to this psalm. "He guided them with the cloud by day and with the light from the fire all night." This is a reference to the cloud and fire that God sent to lead Israel through the desert. It is the manifest presence of God to his people. It seems to me that the psalmist is asking God to send out his Holy Spirit to guide him and cause him to go to God. God’s truth is clearly God’s written word. The psalmist is confident that if God will send his Holy Spirit and his written word to him that these will bring him to God.

Finally, notice that God is joy and delight to the psalmist. He wants to go to God because God is more pleasurable to him than anything else in all creation. It is not the absence of tormenters or being able to physically go to the temple that will give him delight but God himself is his joy and delight. Our problem is not that we want to be happy. Our problem is what we are seeking to be happy. It is not sinful to want to be happy. It is sin to seek your happiness in anything except for God. It is such a great dishonor to God when we are disappointed and angry when people treat us bad or when we lose our jobs or when we don’t get to go on that vacation but have no sorrow when God is far from us. We treat God with contempt when we pour our time and money and energy into our hobbies or families or jobs but spend mere moments each week seeking him. When we are so easily put off from reading his word, coming to church, seeking him in prayer. Here is the reason to memorize the catechism, to persist in reading that daily Bible, to keep going to small group, God is your joy and delight. God is greater, more beautiful, more satisfying than anything or anyone. He wants us to pursue our pleasure with all our might, in him. We begin when we cry out to him to send forth his Holy Spirit and his Word with such power that we are brought to him and discover him to be our soul’s satisfaction.

I memorized these two verses in 1992 because they capture so well the core of Christianity. It is a prayer I have prayed countless times. Why not make it your prayer?

I cannot end without making sure that you see the end to which all of this is pointing. It is so easy to pass over the end of verse 4. These are throwaway statements for us most of the time. What does the psalmist do when he finally gets to God? He praises him. He declares his greatness. He magnifies God’s love and power with his lips. Why does he do this? He does it because he can’t help himself, because God is his joy and his delight. He does it for the same reason that lovers praise the beauty of their mistresses, that nature enthusiasts praise the beauty of the mountains, that sports fans cheer for their teams. He does it because God is worthy of praise. Notice that he is not out of the trouble that prompted this entire prayer. He is still in trouble but he is full of joy because he is brought to God who is his joy and delight and so he praises God. This is God’s ultimate purpose in the world. He does all that he does to magnify the greatness of his own name. But note here how he does this. He displays his greatness in saving his people so that they rejoice in him and so glorify him by their joy. God’s plan is that you get the joy and he gets the glory. What a gracious and awesome God.

© Copyright 2001 John Swanson.
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