Opening illustration: A shepherd, who had spent many years with flocks on the hills of Scotland, asked me if I had ever seen a sheep eat while lying down. When I confessed that I had not, he told me that no one had ever seen a sheep eat in that position. “If a sheep is lying down,” he continued, “there may be a lovely tuft of grass within an inch of her nose, but she will not eat it. She will scramble to her feet, lean over and eat the grass that was in easier reach before. "Thus when the Lord, our Shepherd, makes us lie down in green pastures (Psalm 23), that means we have had so much, we just can’t take any more. We are beside the still waters and He has already satisfied our thirst. (Donald Grey Barnhouse).
Introduction: Do you have a passion for God? In other words, is God your first love? Having passion for God means that every molecule of our being is drawn to God and given up to Him. As water and air are essential for sustaining life, so God and His presence are for having wholeness in life. Genuine believers will have an unprecedented hunger and thirst for God and His blessings, His graciousness and supernatural activities in their lives. When we stop having that hunger and thirst for God, there is a gradual spiritual debility. Therefore we must protect our lives, so that nothing would diminish our love and passion for God.
How to YEARN for God in the midst of distresses?
1. SOUL craves for GOD (vs. 1-2)
Psalm 42 begins with a verse that may be familiar to you, “As the deer pants for the water… so my soul pants for you.” (v. 1) For some reason, I always pictured that deer standing at the water. It has been thirsty, but now it’s about to drink. But that’s not the image at all. The Psalmist (and the deer) are still far from water. That’s why the spiritual throat is parched. The Psalmist cries out, “When shall I come and appear before God?” (v. 2) God seems far away and there seems no soon-coming satisfaction for a parched soul.
Scripture often describes our longing for God as a deep hunger or thirst. Hunger and thirst are basic drives in our bodies, and there is also a hunger and thirst of the soul. This fallen world, with its fallen people, can never satisfy our fallen selves. But we keep going back to it, as if it can. We set our sights on the objects of a thousand different desires, none of which give us the lasting pleasure we long for.
We long for God’s Word, that truth which is an extension of Himself that clarifies and explains, and shows us life as it really is, not as it is constantly misperceived. The world, with its sin and shallowness, leaves a sour taste in our mouths, but there is an eternal sweetness to God’s Word.
Like eating good food and exercising regularly, if we develop the holy habit of daily meditating on Scripture, we will deeply appreciate it, realize our need for it, and miss it acutely whenever we’re away from it too long. If you’re not craving God’s Word, you’ve forgotten what you’re missing—or perhaps you’ve never known.
That is why God may allow deficiency, disease, or depression to come into our lives; to drive us to crave a closer relationship to Him. For example, when satisfaction and purpose are missing from our lives and we are deficient in these qualities it is God’s way of helping us crave Him. God is what we really need! When something in our life is out of place, when our relationships are hurting, or when there is a sense of dis-ease in our heart, it is God showing us that He is what we need. And when we are discouraged or depressed, when life has let us down, it is God showing us that He is the only one who can truly satisfy. He wants us to crave Him more than anything else in life!
We sinners who would have been consumed by the burning holiness of God will be transformed into righteous people with the moral character of Christ, so that we can see God face to face, gazing upon Him with sheer delight. Never again will we withdraw from Him, nor He from us.
When we see Him with our resurrected eyes, we will realize that all our lives, as we went down every dead end street pursuing what we thought we wanted, it was really Him we were searching for, longing for. And Him alone that could ever satisfy us.
2. Things changed: Drink SORROW (v. 3)
My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (v. 3) Rather than God’s presence being food and drink for the soul, the Psalmist is overwhelmed by sorrow from within and questions from without.
What’s this? Has God fed his people with the bread of tears and tears? Has God inflicted sorrow upon his people? Yet, we also know that God does not forever abandon us. Yes, he allows us to weep ... for a season. But that is not the end of the story. Through Jesus Christ, we have begun to experience the joy of this harvest, however partially (for example 1 Peter 1:3-9). Our sadness in this world increases our yearning for God, opening us to more of his grace. Even as we eat the bread of tears, we also eat the bread of new life, the body of our Lord. So we are sustained through times of sorrow by the hope of God’s future.
When we feel pure sorrow it does not mean we have lost faith. There is no better illustration of this than the story of Lazarus’s death in John 11. When Mary and Martha challenge Jesus' timing, He gives them answers. But when they simply weep with a pure sorrow, He weeps with them. In perfect faith and assurance of the coming glory of Lazarus’s resurrection, Jesus knew sorrow.
Sorrow and grief are natural and healthy emotions which are realistic in the face of this world’s very real woes. For the Christian, sorrow is not forever, only for now. The worst of the pain will pass even in this life. No matter how long it may linger, sorrow is temporary. Jesus told His disciples, "Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy" (John 16:20).
Jesus wept with friends. He wept in prayer. He drank the ultimate cup of sorrow for us at the Cross. Today, He weeps with those who weep, just as He commands us, His Body, to do. And afterward He restores our joy, that He might have all the glory for being both the One who shares the cup of sorrow and the Source of the glorious wine of gladness.
3. WORSHIP God corporately (v. 4)
These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. (v. 4)
It is only in reading verse 4 that we see how much things have changed. At one time the Psalmist was so close to God, joyful and full of the Spirit as he led in the worship procession. Now, captive and far from home, with captors teasing and taunting and with tears for food, God’s absence is all the more keenly felt.
We also get to know God through worship both personal and corporate. When we take the facts of nature and the infallible revelation of Scripture and respond to them in faith, prayer and obedience, we truly worship God. Praising Him, ascribing worship to Him and praying to Him, do something to us internally. This is God’s self-revelation to us through His Spirit to our human spirit. Through worship we get to know God personally and intimately. When we pray, our occupation is with our human needs and problems. When we praise, our occupation in our minds is on God’s blessing – the things He has done to us and for us. Worship is our occupation with God Himself, with His greatness and majesty of His being. We do not worship the Bible. We worship the God of the Bible. The Bible is merely the vehicle or instrument that reveals to us the one and only True God.
Corporate worship makes a public statement. If we’re regular church attendees, we publicly demonstrate our obedience to the command to love God. To say we love Christ yet neglect His body is hypocritical. Regular church attendance also shows support for the work of God in the world—that we are for Jesus rather than against Him (Matthew 12:30).
Have you ever been where this Psalmist was? Have you ever felt like God was nowhere to be found and your tears were your only food and drink? Have you heard that question so clearly, whether from others or in the hidden privacy of your own thoughts, “Where is God now?”
Things have changed so much. Surely this sounds familiar to those who have lost loved ones, for whom life at the deep level and on the everyday level is just so different now. These verses must sound familiar to those who once felt close to God, whether in youth group or in another stage of life, and for whom God now seems distant or doubtful. Those who have been through divorce or who are really struggling in marriage might know what this Psalmist is talking about. Things have changed and aren’t as they once were; and while that describes earthly things and relationships it almost always also impacts our experience of God.
Illustration: In late 1990's in Watford, England, Matt Redman's church had a high caliber praise band and worship team, yet the pastor knew that the entire congregation had lost its way in worship. Their focus had become to garner the applause of people, self-gratification and concerto performance based. So during the worship service the Pastor asked "When you come through the doors on a Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God?" Matt Redman says the question led initially to some embarrassing silence. Eventually, heartfelt prayers and heart-driven songs were sung as they experienced God in a fresh way. Through that experience, Matt wrote this:
When the music fades, All is stripped away, and I simply come
Longing just to bring something, That's of worth that will bless your heart
I'm coming back to the heart of worship, And it's all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the things I've made it, When it's all about You All about You, Jesus.
After a little while, they re-introduced band, praise team, etc. and with the renewed focus and intensity, the corporate time became authentic (real). Worship from the heart is not about the newest, latest, greatest, or hottest song on the charts. It's not about the oldest, most obscure, and well-known song. In fact, true worship is not about a song at all, it's about a Son. It's about our bringing to Him my soul, my life, and my all. (Jerry Watts Sermon: "Lessons From the Shepherds") Can we do it corporately?
4. HOPE in God more than ever (v. 5)
Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. (v. 5)
You may have experienced this as talking to yourself or simply as a knot deep within that defies words and untangling. In this case, the Psalmist surely hadn’t figured it all out. He wasn’t feeling suddenly better or more holy. In fact, if my experience is any indication, these words simply marked his realization that something was very wrong and perhaps only God could make it right. If you have lost someone or something, and it feels like your faith went along with it, listen carefully, for the writer of this Psalm knows what you feel like.
The Psalmist will have similar words with himself two more times, like the refrain of a song. Each time, the words take on more weight, as if the knot is untangling and his thoughts are developing. As if the memory of that procession to the house of the Lord takes hold, the Psalmist now consciously decides to remember more about God and what God has done in his life.
Biblically, from the standpoint of the object hoped for, hope is synonymous with salvation and its many blessings, past, present, and future, as promised in Scripture. This is true even with what we have already received as believers because these blessings come under the category of what we cannot see. We may see some of the results, but it still requires faith and hope. For example, we do not see the justifying work of God, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to our account, nor do we see the indwelling of the Holy Spirit when we are saved, nor our co-union with Christ. We believe this to be a reality, but this is a matter of our hope. We believe in the testimony of God in the Word and hope for the results in our lives.
Illustration: In anticipation of a nationwide evangelism last November to coincide with his 95th birthday, renowned preacher Billy Graham released a letter through his association in which he says that America needs a spiritual awakening more than ever before.
"If ever there was a time this country needed the intervention of God, it is now," writes Graham in the letter published on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website. "We can and should pray for America as a whole, but remember that when God sets out to change a nation, He begins by changing people. It starts with individuals."
Application: In the past there have been men and women of God who have displayed unprecedented desire for God during their time of greatest distress. David and Hannah have been good examples of what it really means. They also had a hope in God more than even one could imagine. That is why He became the God of all impossibilities in their life. We may be at a similar as any one of them. What determines our relationship with Him is whether we become bitter or crave for Him more than ever knowing our entire life dependence is on Christ our Lord and King. This craving is just the advent of revival of our lives.
