Episode Transcript
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You may be seated and let's turn
to psalm forty two. This morning,
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Psalm Forty two, let's give our
attention to God's word, and I'm going
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to focus my sermon this morning on
the last verse, Verse Eleven. Let's
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hear the whole song, Psalm Forty
two. As a deer pants for flowing
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streams, so my soul pants,
my soul for you, Oh God.
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My Soul Thirst for God, for
the Living God. When shall I come
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and appear before God? My tears
have been my food, day and night,
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while they say to me all the
day long, where is your God?
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These things I remember as I pour
out my soul. How I would
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go with the throng and lead them
in procession to the House of God,
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with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are
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you cast down, Oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within
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me? Hope in God, for
I shall again praise him, my salvation
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and my God. My soul is
cast down within me. Therefore, I
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remember you from the land of Jordan
and Herman, from Mountain Tazar. Deep
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calls to deep at the roar of
your waterfalls, all your breakers and your
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waves have gone over me. By
Day, the Lord Commands his steadfast love,
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and at night his song is with
me. A prayer to the god
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of my life. I say to
God, My Rock, why have you
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forgotten me? Why do I go
mourning because of the oppression of the enemy,
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as with a deadly wound in my
bones? My adversaries taunt me,
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while they say to me all the
day long, where is your God?
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Why are you cast down, O
my soul? Why are you in turmoil
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within me? Hope in God,
for I shall again prais him, my
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salvation and my God. Amen.
Was We look back on the year behind
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us. We have a lot to
reflect on, a lot to think about,
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and I hope that you do some
of that and have the opportunity to
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do some of that. We have
a lot to be thankful for, a
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lot of things that God has blessed
us with, but the most important thing
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that God has given to us over
this year and over our whole lives,
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indeed the whole history of the world, is Christ himself. It's him who
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is with us, Emmanual, and
it's Christ who promise is never to leave
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us. As we think back on
the things that we have received the things
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that have been helpful and stabilized us
and kept us well. Jesus is number
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one and he will be number one
in the future. It's something you can
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guarantee, something God has promised to
us. If you are a Christian,
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Christ is where you find true peace
for your soul. It's not the candy
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or the music, or the presence
or the friends. These things are all
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lovely and sweet, they are good
holiday comforts, but they're not what we
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settle our souls on. They're not
the rock of our salvation. We find
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our peace in Christ alone. Do
you remember what the Angel said when they
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announced his birth? They said glory
to God in the highest heaven and on
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Earth, peace to those on whom
his favor rests. That's at the beginning
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of it is life. And at
the end of his life. Do you
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remember what Jesus said to his disciples
as he was about to leave them,
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as he was about to die and
then rise and ascend into heaven? He
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said to his disciples and to us
as well, peace I leave with you.
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My peace. I give you not
as the world gives. Do I
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give you. Let not your hearts
be troubled, neither let them be afraid
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aid. That's John Fourteen twenty seven. And so we see in the scriptures.
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We are minded of this fact that
it's it's not toys or wrapping paper
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that quiets our souls and encourages us
in the face of trouble. It is
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Jesus Christ. He is our Lord, he is our Savior, he is
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our peace. And so as we
come to psalm forty two, we are
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reminded of this, that God is
our hope, he is our salvation,
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he is our God and he comes
to us in a world that is hard,
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really hard. Sometimes. As we
look back on the last year,
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as you perhaps look forward on the
future year, as you experience your life
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right now, there are difficult things
and I know that some of you struggle
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and great ways. I want to
speak to you today. I want to
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speak to those of you who find
yourselves in a difficult place or perhaps will
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in the coming year, those of
you who, for one reason another,
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feel as though a dark cloud has
filled your mind or your heart, the
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kind of shadow hanging over you.
Maybe it's a partial shadow and maybe it's
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feels as black as night. This
picture of a cloud is a picture that
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has stuck with me among a number
of other thoughts, I'd like to share
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to you day from a collection of
sermons that I've been reading from the Puritan
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William Bridge. He was one of
the members of the Westminster Assembly, Godly
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Man who wrote a nice collection of
sermons that's banner of truth put together,
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called a lifting up for the downcast, and it's there that bridge compares the
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trouble of the Christian's heart to that
of a dark cloud. Do you know
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what I mean by a dark cloud? A kind of ominous foreboding, a
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dread and anxiety that swallows, oh
swallows up hope, a kind of dark
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cloud where it feels like it's nighttime. The day has gone away on the
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sun, which brings joy and gladness
and health and life, it's gone and
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it's just dark and scary. If
you feel that dark cloud in your life,
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perhaps you can name it. Maybe
for you it's called grades, maybe
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it's called guilt, maybe it's called
failure or sickness or divorce or grief,
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or perhaps you don't know what to
name it. You just find yourself discouraged,
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agitated, anxious, spinning and you're
not sure why. You can't figure
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out what the winds are that rock
the boat of your soul. And then
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there are some of you who feel
ashamed to say the name of that dark
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cloud out loud because you know that
the thing you dread is something that you
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ought to love, like church or
the Bible or even God himself. Maybe
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you feel like David, God's Good
King and faithful servant, who was brave
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and holy when he wrote these lines
in Psalm seventy seven three. When I
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remember God, I Moan, when
I meditate, my spirit faints, or
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in the verse before that, when
he says my soul refuses to be comforted.
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We hear about Dad God's anguish,
even over meditation, even over being
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in worship, even over God himself. We don't find happiness, we don't
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rejoice in these awful feelings that he's
facing. But perhaps you can identify with
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them. Perhaps you know what it
feels like to dread opening the Bible or
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going to church or even praying and
talking to God. David, God's holy
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word describes these very feelings. He
also describes this dark place of the soul,
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and Psalm two eleven are verse.
Today. There's twice in this psalm
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he describes his soul as being cast
down, as being in turmoil. When
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he says cast down, the Hebrew
means something like dissolving, like melting away.
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His soul is no longer solid.
It can't hold anything, it can't
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hold weight. He feels like he's
becoming a nothing. But he's not going
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quietly into the night. He says
he's in turmoil. It's a word that's
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used for noisy crowds, crashing waves, roaring animals, agitation, even moaning.
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The word is him and it even
sounds like moaning or crying. Hi
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Mahi, Mahime. It's a sad
word. It means that has that kind
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of agitation and Moan to it.
Of course I know what that feels like,
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and you do to all of us, at some point or another,
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knows what it feels like to be
in that dark place. And you know
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what Jesus felt it too. As
a man, in the deepest part of
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his soul, Jesus felt and knew
that dark cloud. He knew what it
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felt like to have his soul cast
down, his soul in turmoil. We
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have his words. He says,
my God, my God, why have
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you forsaken me? That's what Jesus
says. If Jesus can feel abandoned by
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God. Surely his servants might feel
this way from time to time and to
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one degree or another. But this
changing that happens in our life, these
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this sense that these dark clouds roll
and roll out, there's something that's very
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encouraging about that, a reality that
clues us into an encouragement and it points
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because it points us to the fact
the feelings can change. And that's what
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David is after here in our psalm. He recognizes what is going on inside
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his heart, he sees where he's
at and he seeks to move to some
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better place. He says to himself, he's self talk right, he's talking
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to himself, and he says,
why are you cast down on my soul?
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Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I
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shall again praise him, my salvation
and my God. This teaches us something.
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It teaches us that while anxiety and
discouragement are experienced by God's children,
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his most beloved children, it's not
the end of the story. You may
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be experiencing a dark cloud, but
it is just a cloud. The Sun
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may be covered up, it may
be as dark as night, but it
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is not night. The Sun,
though covered for a time, is still
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there, still shining away, and
as soon as the cloud will move,
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the reins will be the rays of
the Sun will be felt again, because
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a cloud is just a cloud.
They move, they change. The God
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and his love does not. But
in the meantime, when you're feeling those
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that dark cloud, when you're feeling
this casting down and turmoil in your soul,
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what can you do? What can
you do? Well, we can
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learn, I think, a few
things from David's example. The first thing
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is that we ought to take time
to notice how we're feeling. David can
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address what's going on in his soul
because he's paying attention to it. He
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knows what's going on in his heart. He can name and he can describe
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the state of his soul, his
emotions. Many of us cannot. Frankly,
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we have a very limited vocabulary to
describe how we're feeling. Mad,
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sad, glad and, I don't
know, something else. These big,
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big humongs, categories the capture so
many things. I heard an interview this
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week with the popular sociologist Bern a
brown. She recently wrote a book called
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the Atlas of the heart, which
she names eighty seven different emotions. How
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many emotions do you think there are? How many can you name? Now?
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There's no one answer to this.
She hasn't figured it all out.
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But the point is that it's difficult
to deal with a heart if you don't
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know what's going on inside, if
you don't have language and vocabulary to describe
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it. Perhaps you remember, or
you listen to that old show. Suppose
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they do reruns now. Car Talk
Right, right, okay, and and
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sometimes they joke right about the the
warning lights that come on. You just
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put a piece of black tape over
it right on your dashboard. That's how
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we, some of us, deal
with our emotions. We just put a
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piece of black papers. I don't
have to worry about that anymore. But
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the light, the warning lights,
still on right, they're still telling you
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something, and it doesn't turn out
well when you ignore the dashboard, when
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you're getting information. David doesn't ignore
how he's feeling. He doesn't just wipe
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it away or pretend it's not there. We ought to train ourselves to be
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honest and specific as much as we
can, because the better we get it
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ignosing, the better we get a
curing helps to know what's going on.
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So we know what to do.
David knows what's going on, he knows
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that his soul is cast down,
he knows that his soul is in turmoil
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and he speaks truthfully and honestly about
it. The second thing I think we
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can learn from David and this holy
scriptures here is that whenever we can,
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we ought to nip discouragement in the
bud. Naming is good, but it's
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not enough, and one of the
best things you can do is to not
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let your worries and your fears and
a downcast soul go unchecked. I know
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this is hard, but it's still
important to say. When you see a
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fly in your house, do you
wait for a full on plague before you
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finally shut the door? No,
you see a fly to your house,
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you go somebody shot that are or
you go shut the door. And so
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also, with the buzzing of anxiety
in us, the gnawing of despair,
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when you see trouble in your heart, deal with it right away. NIP
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IT in the bud. Don't let
discouragement and worries and troubles grow and grow
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and grow. And you do that
by talking to yourself from the truth of
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God's word. You set your heart
on a different path. You say,
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Hey, soul, why are you
so cast down? Why are you in
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turmoil? Hoping God, hoping God. And if you don't do that,
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you'll find, as I have found, that worrying will wear you out,
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and it's kind of foolish to if
I'm honest about it. What does Jesus
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say in Matthew Six, twenty and
seventy? Says which of you, by
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being anxious, can add a single
hour to his lifespan? Being anxious doesn't
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give us any benefit. If you
worry for one hour, let's say,
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do you gain an hour? No, you lose one. That's what Jesus
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says. And you know what,
brothers the sisters, that includes being anxious
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about being anxious. Do you know
what I mean? Think about it.
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Will worrying about worrying suddenly make you
not worry? No, you're just entering
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more into it. Sometimes the only
way to stop a bear is to shoot
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it, but most of the time
you just don't feed it. Most of
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the time you don't feed the bears, you don't give them the ant,
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the the food that they need.
And our anxieties are like that. When
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we feed our anxieties, especially with
more anxiety. We get all tied up.
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William Bridge, who I mentioned earlier, he uses this example. He
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says, as the bird in the
net, the more it strives, the
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more it is entangled. So also
with you. Are you sorrowful? Leave
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it to God, and that's what
David does here. Notice what his plan
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is for dealing with his troubled heart, his very, very troubled art.
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His plan is really simple. He
says to himself, hope in God.
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Notice what David's plan is not.
David's plan is not to figure out how
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to feel better and then hope in
God. It's just hope in God.
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David's plan isn't a hope in God
for a little bit, see if it
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works and he feels better, and
then hoping God some more. It's just
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hopeing God. David's plan isn't too
hope in God for a little bit,
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see if it works and then to
try something else. It's just hopeing God.
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Bridge, William Bridge, suggests a
pair of prayer, which all pray
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of pair of phrase. Whether I'm
he's, this is the prayer. Okay,
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whether I'm forever in this bad state
or not, it's none of my
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business. Lord simply, let me
serve you. That's the only thing I
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want. Let me see you as
you please and when you please. I
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know that in your time you will
answer and I shall praise you. That's
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a prayer that doesn't worry. That's
a prayer that's recognizes the anxiety in the
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worries in our hearts and just says, there it is, I'm going to
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hope in God, no matter what
happens, even if the anxiety stays,
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even if the worrying stays, we
just simply choose to hope in God and
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put our hope in that. This
really is the best antidote for a troubled
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soul, a soul in turmoil,
soil, a soul melting away and being
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cast down. And the final thing
I'll say this morning is this. We
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also learn from this passage that true
peace comes only from the true God.
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It will do you no good to
put your hope in a god of your
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imagination or in yourself or are most
certainly, in your circumstances. There is
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such a thing as false peace and
many, many people attain it. They
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get it, they find it false
peace. That is so, how do
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you know if the peace you've found
is false or at best temporary. Well,
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you know it this way because you
found it apart from God. You
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found it in yourself or in someone
else or in some circumstance. Imagine your
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hungry. We find, let's say, an apple on the ground. Hooray,
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you found an apple. This happened
to me once, by the way.
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We do all that. Were walking, we were hungry and there are
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some bananas and we had the bananas
and they were good. That's those great
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right. You are so how your
hunger is satisfied, but it only lasts
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for a moment, right. Soon
you're hungry again. What you need to
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find is an apple tree and a
whole garden around it, and then you
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build your house next to it.
That's what we need from God. What
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I'm saying is that the only lasting
source of peace is our God, who
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is everlasting, and God tells us
in his word how it is we can
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enjoy that peace. We have it, he says, when we trust in
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Jesus. We have it when we
trust in him to speak peace in our
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lives as a prophet. We have
it in Jesus when we trust him to
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forgive our sins. As a priest
and reconcile us to God, and we
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have peace in Jesus when we trust
him to defend our enemies, both the
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internal ones and the external ones.
As Prophet, as priest, as King
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we trust Jesus. We hope in
God and in each and every single one
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of these points, and a thousand
under each of those categories. Jesus gives
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us his peace. He offers US
himself as the full and complete and everlasting
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solution to every problem, every condition, every trouble that we find ourselves in.
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Jesus, the Bible says, it's
like a second Adam, but instead
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of getting US kicked out of the
garden and losing access to the tree of
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life, he secures the way to
heaven itself, and the tree of life
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is never to be lost again,
as the Apostle Paul says in Romans five.
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Therefore, since we have been justified
by faith, we have peace with
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God. The peace of Christ given
to his saints is objective. It's his
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promise, Jesus says. This is
what he says. He says, come
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to me, all who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give
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you rest. Take my yoke upon
you, take my yoke upon you and
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learn from me, for I am
gentle and lowly in heart, and you
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will find rest for your souls.
My Yoke is easy and my burden is
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light. Do not doubt that truth. Jesus said it, he died for
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it, he came into the world
form it, angels proclaimed it and he
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said as I began with and his
Jesus ended with my peace. I lad
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with you, not as the world
gives, but my peace I leave with
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you. Don't let your hearts be
troubled. So don't doubt him, even
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when you don't sense that peace for
the time being. Don't doubt him because,
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like The Sun, Jesus Christ is
shining and working even when you don't
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see him. The clouds, they
come and go, the conditions of life
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they change, but God does not, and his promise is sure. So
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don't put your faith in the circumstances
of your life, don't put your faith
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in your feelings, but put your
faith in God, hope in him and
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in him alone. Tell your soul
what to do when it's feeling down.
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Tell your soul hope in God,
for God has conquered sin and death and
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Satan himself for you. God calls
you his friend and that doesn't change.
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He is your praise, he is
your salvation and no little cloud is going
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to stop him from shining down on
you. So let no little cloud stop
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you from believing in him. Let's
pray
