Put Your Hope in God
Psalm 42
The writer of this psalm is a Korahite
That means a few different things. He was a highly respected Levite who was part of a rich family tradition of music and worship. He was a man of status, deeply embedded in the tradition of Temple worship. It means that his family lived somewhere in the Southwest district of Israel, probably within 60 miles of Jerusalem. It means according to Numbers 8 that he was allowed to work only 20 to 25 years at his craft till he was required to retire at the age of 50.
I think this is important, because I believe the man who wrote this Psalm was retired. Look at verse 4. The writer of this Psalm used to lead a multitude or a festive throng in singing at the Temple. He lived in a time when the Northern kingdom was still intact and Temple Worship was still active.
This particular man is no longer assisting at the Temple. He is no longer even living in Jerusalem. He has moved to the far north near Mt. Hermon. He is far from the Temple in Jerusalem and in the cities of his Levite clan in the south-west. He lives about as far as you can get from the Temple and still be in Israel up in the Jordan hill country in the tribe of Dan.
Historically the further north you got, the less inclined the people were to Temple worship. Mt. Hermon was close to Dan where one of the first two official sites of idol worship were established shortly after the kingdom divided. It may have been in this very city that the writer of this Psalm lived.
This man is living in the shadow of his life. If he is retired, he is over 50, which was relatively old for that day, he is old enough to be thinking about death. Verse 7 is the hint of this. He feels as if he is drowning in darkness. The Israelites were the ultimate land lubbers. The sea was a source of fear for them in this day. Jonah used very similar language when he prayed from the belly of the fish in Jonah 2. He thought he was going to die.
• This man is living among aggressive idolaters
• He is too old to officially work at his profession
• He may feel that he will die soon
• He is far from the Temple he enjoyed so much
• More than anything he wants to go back to the Temple
This man’s situation has gotten him down
“My tears have been my food day and night” he says. The threat of death may be very real, but his situation is worse than that. He feels abandoned by God. It is easy to see why:
• He is surrounded by the unfamiliar
• He is far from what he loves
• The center of God’s presence is far away
• He is getting older
• He feels the aggression of opposition
Some of you can identify:
• Do you have family far away? So did this man.
• Can you no longer do everything you used to do and enjoy? Him too
• Do you feel like a minority, especially when it comes to your faith? He knows how you feel.
• Is the world changing faster than you can keep up with? Been there, done that.
• Does it feel sometimes like God has abandoned you to this world of strangeness and discomfort? This anonymous man felt it too
And he overcame it! How? He relied on the hope he found in his relationship with God.
He focused on his spiritual need
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
Often we most acutely feel the lack of things we do not need when we neglect our true needs. There are a few basic things that we will all admit that we need:
• Food
• Water
• Love
• Clothing
• Something to occupy ourselves
When we begin extending our list of needs too far beyond this list we find ourselves justifying the need. Maybe our justification is valid or maybe it isn’t. I wouldn’t want to make any blanket statements, but we should always be ready to break our lives down to the bare necessities if it is required and to live in contentment with those things.
But even in the realm of absolute necessities there is to be priority. Jesus said,
do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:31-33 (NIV)
Notice that Jesus is not saying that we should neglect these physical needs - He is saying that we should not let them become sources of anxiety. That is hard, there is no doubt about it. But he promises that these things will be provided if we focus on God’s kingdom. The one thing we need the most is our relationship with God.
What is more, he promises that a focus on our spiritual needs will be met with fulfillment: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 (NIV)
Our focus does determine the strength of our drives.
The story is told about a Native American man walking in New York City with a friend. He stopped and said, “listen to that cricket.”
The man was astounded and listened but couldn’t hear the cricket through the noise. He told the man that he must have amazing ears to be able to hear a cricket over the clamor.
“No,” said the Native American. “We best hear what we are most consumed with.”
He took a few coins out of his pocket and dropped them on the side walk. Immediately the heads of every person around them turned to find the coins.
• We find our hunger increased when we are faced with food.
• We find our sexual appetite whetted when we see sexy or romantic images
The more we focus on our need for God the more acutely we will feel that need. We will find ourselves longing for God the way a thirsty animal longs for water.
He made time with God a priority
We see this in several ways. One he asked a question and then he answered it.
When can I go and meet with God? (Verse 3)
I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Verses 5 & 11)
This man knew the answers to his questions and he made plans to have those questions addressed. When we begin focusing on our spiritual need we begin asking, “how can this need be filled?” In the language of the Korahite, “When can I go and meet with God?” Sometimes we stop at that point and don’t continue.
Remember for him it was a more complicated question.
Jesus introduced a concept that Old Testament believers would not have easily understood. Jesus told the Samaritan Woman at the Well that they would no longer go to Jerusalem to worship, but that they would worship in Spirit and in Truth. In OT times the only way for the Jews to stay right with God was to obey the Law and to go to the Temple to sacrifice for whatever sins they had committed and to keep the holy days. If they did not do the sacrifices they were out of God’s will.
This man lives in a place where sacrifices to a false God are sent up as regularly as true sacrifices were sent up at the Temple. The very reason this false religion was being practiced is because the Temple was over 100 miles away.
To remain faithful to God in this situation would have been difficult to say the least. To be a Levite would have been dangerous. His enemies would not have been simple acquaintances who thought that his views were a little eccentric. They would have been priests of a false god who saw his teachings as a threat. Their religion would have been evident all around them and they would have had a very physical advantage when they said, “where is your God?”
Since the coming of Jesus the situation is quite different. We no longer need a priest at the temple to address God. Paul says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV)
What is more, John says:
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. Rev 1:5-6 (NIV)
• You don’t need to go to the temple, if you know Jesus Christ, you are the temple
• You don’t need to go to a priest, if you know Jesus Christ, you are a priest
• You don’t need a high priest to step before the throne of God, if you know Jesus Christ He is your high priest
The plans we make to come into the presence of God are limited only by our ability to give Him the time we need to have with Him. I will admit that all time is not equal. Sometimes we can pray on the fly and sometimes our time needs to be more specifically devoted so that we can concentrate and hear from Him. It need never be more than a matter of hours before we gain a strong and substantial time with our God.
Perhaps there is something about your spiritual need that makes corporate worship more appropriate. Maybe you need intercession or maybe you need the support of brothers and sisters. Your relationship with these people around you becomes that much more important. Who in this room can you call for prayer and for counsel. Of course you can call me, but you can call each other too. Each of you should establish in your mind a person who you will call when your spiritual need is beyond your capacity to cope with. There is strength in unity.
He remembered spiritual joys in his past
Our Psalmist remembers, “how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.”
All of our spiritual experiences will be different. When I need spiritual strength I remember a few specific incidents:
• the healing of my sister
• the salvation of two specific friends and my father
• both my parents’ victory over tobacco
• God’s hand through my own spiritual doubt
• a special time of discussion with a friend in which I felt the power of God almost tangibly
What are the spiritual high points in your life? I’m not talking about focusing on the past, I’m talking about allowing the power of God in your past to feed your faith for the present and for the future.
It was only after our Korahite remembered the praise of God in his past that he could look ahead with confidence to another time of praise in the future.
I am convinced that when we intentionally remember how God has worked in our lives we will never settle for spiritual mediocrity. We will seek God’s face for an ever present and ever richer spiritual experience.
He resisted the temptation to think of God as anything less than what He is
The Korahite says, “By day the LORD directs his love.” He knew that God loved him.
• His age
• His opposition
• His loneliness
• His spiritual drought
All these things suggested to his spirit that God was abandoning him and he admitted to that temptation, but he did not give into it.
A mistake we often make, is seeing temptation as sin. The suggestion of doing something wrong is not sin itself. Submitting to the suggestion is. Notice the difference in the two statements made by the Korahite:
• I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me?”
• By day the LORD directs his love.
The first is a statement of his own perception. His question to God. The second is a statement of fact. He may find himself asking God where He is, but he resolutely reminds himself that God loves him and he is there all day long.
We can admit to having doubt, but we must take control of our minds and constantly remind ourselves of who God is and where He is. Our suspicion that God has left us does not make it so.
He saturated his spirit with holy things
“at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.”
• What songs do you sing in the car? Are they the hymns that you learn in these services?
• How often do your pray? Only when you are in trouble?
Set these exercises as spiritual disciplines in your life. Pray often and with a certain routine. Find a time or a stimulus that moves you to prayer. Keep a journal if that works for you so that you can track who you are praying for and how God is answering. Allow the songs you sing to be prayers, singing them to God, changing the words slightly if you must.
Sing praises to God intentionally. Do not allow the random streams of your thoughts to fill your mouth with songs. I would never be one to say that listening to secular music is sinful, but it is not something that we should make our regular diet. Think about hymns and praise songs. Listen to wholesome music and allow these things to come from your mouth instead.
If we don’t focus on God intentionally, Satan will send as many distractions as he can to keep us from doing it by accident.
This Psalm ends in hope. The Psalmist looked beyond his circumstances and saw what God held out to him for his spiritual well being.
The hope that God has for us is not something that is without effort. We must reach for it to grasp it.
• It is for those who believe
• It is for those who take it seriously
• It is for those who are willing to sacrifice their despair to find it
• It is for those who will remember that God is more powerful than anything
And even if we don’t feel like praising God today, perhaps we need spiritual therapy. These spiritual tools can serve as medicine that make it possible for us to praise Him tomorrow. With the Korahite Psalmist we can say:
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (NIV)
