You're Not In This By Yourself

This Psalm is not as famous as the first verse of this Psalm is and has become. Most of us in here are relatively familiar with the words of this 22nd Psalm. Many of us, in fact, perhaps thought that these words read in your hearing were words that flowed from the lips of Jesus as an original/novel statement. But today you will discover that this was not an original statement from the cross of Calvary but that Jesus was speaking the word from a song in the 22nd Psalm from on the cross that he had learned as a child in Judaic culture and tradition.

It is not a song of Christ but, in fact, it is a Psalm of David. It comes from a time when David is feeling abandoned/deserted/isolated/desolate—feeling alone. He felt that God had left him all by himself.
• It is the feeling for David, in particular, of abandonment by a God Who got you in the mess you’re in.
• In particular—a Psalm and a cry to a God—not only because you feel alone—but it’s a cry to a God who got you in the mess that makes you feel like you are by yourself.

Can I ask you a question today?: Have you ever followed God into somewhere or something—and when you got into that somewhere or something the mess was so bad you said, “Now God you got me IN this mess—so now if you got me in this mess—why do I feel like I’m all of a sudden all by myself?”

To really get the understanding of this passage you must take it out of it’s Christological context and see Jesus in the light of the Psalm and not the Psalm in light of Jesus.

Because in the New Testament whenever one quoted the Old Testament was because of what the author meant in the Old Testament when they wrote it. And so in order to really understand this Psalm you really can’t talk about what Jesus was going through; you’ve got to understand what David is going through.

It is a cry for help
It is a cry for deliverance out of something that you never would have been in if you weren’t following God.

Isn’t it amazing that sometimes it appears that when you are following God it can often appear that you are in more of a mess than you were before you decided to follow God’s will, God’s purpose and God’s plan?

Isn’t it amazing that sometimes you follow God and then wonder why in the world you followed God because what you ended up in was not what you thought that you are going towards?

Isn’t it amazing that every now and then you can feel like you are all by yourself.

Now you must understand initially—that when he says “Why hast thou forsaken me”…he is not talking about the ABSENCE of the presence of God. And we know he’s not talking about that because he’s talking to God.

We know he’s not talking about God not being there—he’s talking about the activity of God.

When he says “God, you’re forsaking me”…the spirit of the text suggests that he is confessing “God you are ignoring me”. It’s not that you’re not here—but God you are ignoring me. And the reason that I feel that you are ignoring me is because I don’t see anything on the outward exterior happening on my behalf.

Herein is the war between the flesh and the spirit. (Between what the spirit knows and what your flesh has to feel and see).

• David has equated activity with acknowledgement and acquiescence…
In other words, David has equated God acknowledging his prayer and acquiescing his request with the activity that