2-1-26 - My Soul Languishes for Your Salvation

Well, we are at the midpoint of som one hundred and nineteen. I wanna ask you a question. What is the most tired that you have ever felt? The kind of weariness that is so deep, you wondered if you were ever going to come out of it.

I'm

gonna snap. Maybe I'm just gonna die. Oh, you're just being dramatic. No, I'm not being dramatic. That is what our text is dealing with this morning.

And I think that we've all felt this at points, that for some reason, because of strong disagreements between brothers, mocking of our coworkers or our classmates, maybe the disapproval of our family.

Lot

of You don't always see that there's a great benefit or reward, and there becomes opposition from doing it. And it can be And you wonder how much strength do I have.

Life,

these trials will strike you I think we all probably have had it happen at some point where we feel helpless. We feel like we're reaching a crisis. Continue? And will I ever recover down. And the sections, the psalmist has been talking about his enemies.

He's been talking about the arrogant ones, the ones who have been opposing. And now we come to this break. His strength is gone. His soul is fainting. His eyes are fainting.

It's instructive to us because what he does is he turns to God. And what we're faithfulness to God has left him exhausted. The deliverance he expects is not The psalmist does not turn away from God or his word. Rather, he clings to it. He cries out to God for comfort.

He pleads for life and he trusts that God's word is and can sustain.

And can sustain. And can sustain.

And can sustain. And we'll find that this is God's answer for us as well. The help that we need in our trials and hardships is not found out in the world. It's found in the word of God. And then to continue on even when we are Bone for the reading of when will you Though I have become like a wineskin in the smoke.

I do not forget your statute. How many are the days of your servant. When will you execute judgment on those who persecute? But as for me, I did not forsake your precepts. Revive me according to your loving kindness so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Right? He's languished.

Right? He's languished. Right? He's languished. Right?

He's languished. Right? He's languished. Right? He's languished.

Right? He's languished. Right? He's languished. Right?

He's languished.

Right? He has no energy. His soul is languishing.

And one thing I want to say is that, Christians do feel

Yeah. There's

a There's a trial that's the same trial. It's day in and day out. The exhaustion gets worse. So what does he do? What do you do when you're exhausted and are waiting for relief?

And this is very different than our response. Tends to be when we get suffering, isn't it? What is our response? Well, when we face suffering, our often, I think our first response is to doubt God. Good tighter he clings to God's word.

The psalmist doesn't sugarcoat how he feels. Pretend that things are really okay. He's very honest about the difficulties. But he absolutely refuses to turn upon God or to forget God's promises. And Yeah.

And he's And he's longing for God's promises to be fulfilled. And he's looking for And it's just not Right? And so what do they do? They run to the window and they start They're coming, right? They're waiting.

They're waiting. Well, this is the Psalmist is waiting for God to fulfill his promise. And the somers's eyes are beginning to fail. He's waiting, and he's saying, when will you when will you

when will you when will you when will you

when will you when

attitude,

what does the delay do? Well, the delay sharpens your desire. And so, you know, when we have the right attitude, what does the delay do? Well, the delay sharpens your desire. Well, the delay sharpens your desire.

The right response to God's delay is to desire what God has promised to give you more. Desire for the, the hope and the peace and the fulfillment that only he can give. And so part of the delay is to teach us to have better taste, upon the word of God, even when your comfort or maybe I should say, especially when your comforts are being stripped away. Painful spot. And he makes this point clearer when he goes to his analogy, right?

He says like a wine skin in the smoke. What is a wine skin in the smoke? Fire, what begins to happen? It gets dried out. The smoke dries it out.

And when you have skin that's being dried out, what to do? It becomes It becomes cracking. It starts to break down. And it's almost And the somers is, like a wineskin by the smoke. I'm being dried out.

This persecution, and I don't know how much longer I can last. I don't know how much

longer I can last. Strain. And yet, in this call, he's not accusing God. And he doesn't actually even

ask God to changes circumstances. And yet, in this call, he's not accusing God. And he doesn't actually even ask God to changes circumstances. And yet, in this call, he's not accusing God. And he doesn't actually even ask God to changes circumstances.

And

If God doesn't bring justice He's not sure he's going to survive to be able to see it. But in the midst of all this turmoil, he is calling on God for justice. He's not taking the justice into his own hands. And what about you? When you are feeling the sense of injustice, where do you go?

Do you call on God for justice? Or do you feel like if justice is to happen, you have to take it into your own hands? And in the midst of all this trial, then he just acknowledges that what are the arrogant doing? Well, these enemies that he's been talking about over the last few stanzas, these arrogant

men, are

that the arrogant men are that the arrogant men are digging are that the arrogant men are digging pits for. And when we think about these pits, you have to think about like a tribal huntsman. Right? You go out in the woods. You dip a big pit.

You put sharp stakes in the bottom of the pit, and then you cover it with some branches and grass and whatever. So, pierced and they die, right? And so the psalmist is saying, I have these enemies, these proud arrogant men and they're digging pits for me. And as Christians, that's what happens. There are people who are out there digging pits, trying to ensnare us.

What does that mean? Well, You have to think about what scripture says about the wicked men. They're like their father, the devil. The devil goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom being made of our And the wicked fall into that trap as well. They follow along with him.

In Romans, we're told that the wicked suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And what happens is, when you have a wicked man who's suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, when he sees right, and so the wicked are always going to oppose to any semblance of righteousness because it wakens their conscious. And it's a front to them because they're in the process of trying to repress the truth. They're in the process of being unrighteous, follow in the footsteps. So they're digging these pits.

They're trying to suppress the right choice. Well, what are these pits? There are different types of things that we could think of as pits. The temptations, the things that are held out, pornography, sexual sins, drunkenness, whether that is attained through alcohol or and our culture is normalizing all these different things up as being benign, and not that big of a deal, but there's poison in them. And if you follow the ideas and the ideologies that the world feeds you to their logical end,

and these ideas are things that you'll find everywhere. And these ideas are things that you'll find everywhere. And these ideas are things that you'll find everywhere. And

And these ideas are things that you'll find everywhere. You'll find these, you'll find, poisonous ideas being spouted by your teachers, by your schoolmates, by your co workers, all over social media, all over the internet. And when we spend time seeped in the teachings of wicked people, susceptible we're going to become for ideological pits that are being dug. There are many, many pits that we could talk about today. Yeah.

Victimhood. This idea of having a victim mentality or a self love. It's a pit that we have today. And here's the thing. Our culture survives on victimhood.

It's the currency of our day. The greater victim you are, the more cachet, the more moral power you have to

get what you want.

We may think that this is new. But it's and I think that this is new. But it's and I'm blamed God in the garden. First, he says, well, it's this wife that you gave me. And then And then what Eve say, well, you know, I'm the real victim here because I was deceived by the And I was deceived by the And so the victimhood mentality goes all the way back to the fall in the garden.

This is not a liberal issue versus a conservative. Are, we're

not

we don't actually need to be held responsible for the things that we've done. These ideas are dangerous, right? These pits are dangerous because you remember that pits disguise. Because what animal is going to jump onto a state. They're smart enough not to do that.

You have to disguise it. And the reality is, you have been sinned. There's a problem if we then take that further and say we are no longer act. The victim says, I am suffering, therefore I'm justified in my bitterness, When suffering becomes the primary lens through which we interpret our reality, it tempts us to excuse our it tempts us to abandon obedience. It tempts us tempts us to treat God's commands as negotiable.

Names the injustice on us, and he cries out, to draw for help. And he remains tethered to the word of God. He doesn't blame other people groups for a sin. He doesn't blame other people groups for a sin. He doesn't go into ethnic vainglory.

And when he doesn't blame his older brother, or his younger brother, or his school mate. And here's the thing. If you're a Christian, you know how many innocent people have suffered in this world. One. Only one.

Obedience to the father crying and his friends would not even stay and pray for him. They would draw. And your friends are uncaring about your draw. And it's literally sweating drops of blood. The anguish that and your and your friends are uncaring about your draw.

And it's literally sweating drops of blood. The anguish that and he came He didn't play the victim. As Christians, we, we we know the truth about who the real innocent person who suffered was.

True

peace will be can with Christ pray for the forgiveness of those who Look to Christ for the salvation, when we'll tie ourselves to his law. There are many other pits. Trying to navigate through these waters, the more you think about it, feels kind of impostor. Keep your children pure? I mean, I've been in groups with you men, right?

We've talked about like, how are we supposed to keep our eye our son's eyes pure when when there's, women walking around in their underwear. Right. You're looking at these traps and the pits and the snares of this world. But it's worse than that, right? Because, we have algorithms which know you better than you know your self.

And the algorithm will find whatever pit you're most susceptible to, and it's gonna

feed it to you. And it's gonna feed it to you.

And the same is true of your children. Jeremiah seventeen:nine is, the heart is deceitful above all things. Your heart, I say, did you hear what he said? It's deceitful above all things and you can't know your heart. Your heart is the best liar, the best deceiver there.

Just But he doesn't stop there. Right? It says, the next verse, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind. Even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds. In other words, there is someone who knows solution to not falling into all these pits, to guarding your kids against all these pits that the wicked are digging and spreading and trying to trap you, is to know the word of God, is to know God's law.

In which they're trying to And And try to God is the one who's above it all and can see the Makes the crooked ways. So if you want to be on guard against all of these snares of the arrogant men in which they're doing, you have to submit to and inculcate yourself with the word of God. In the beginning of the Psalm, he says, how can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word? And notice what he says, that the wicked faithful. God will not lie to you.

All the truths of scripture will bless you and will make your life better. The wicked will simply lie to you. Their pits are deceptive and they're built for your But this is no easy task. Right? Because what's the psalmist say?

They almost destroyed me on the They almost destroyed

The psalmist has been following God's law. He's loving it. He's meditating on it.

Right now, we're not given robes. Because they seek his destruction. They seek to destroy the righteous man, but they have not succeeded.

Rah.

It's because the psalmist life is built on the And there is no surer foundation. And in the end, this is what we see here in this psalm is the essence of after Jesus says, eat my body, drink my blood, all the people say that is weird. It's It's too hard and we want nothing to do with it. And all the he says, and what does Peter say? Peter says, Lord, where else could we go?

You have the words of fluff is gone. The comfort's gone. The ease, gone. There's no end in sight. Point of faith, the whole idea of faith is that you have to trust the one who gave you the promise.

And wait fulfillment of the promise that he's The hope is not realized. You are looking out and you're seeing God promise this, but I don't see it. And I'm And I'm And I know God's good, and I know he promised it, so it has to be true. The only thing that will sustain you in the end is the testimony of God. You have to stand and say, let God's word be true in every man alive.

And all the cultures say, and just conform. Elijah, standing there with all four fifty prophets of Baal. A true dichotomy as a because not only does God have 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bear, but also it's gods there. They actually were there.

They actually were there. They actually were there.

They were there. They well, he calls on God to renew his life according to God's covenantal love. And again, this reveals to us that the psalmist's life isn't about he's not he says, according to your loving, so it's according to God's faithfulness. This is hesed. This is God's covenantal loyalty.

Revive me according to that. Obey. So that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. Isn't that kind of wild? Way?

And and how often does the psalmist argue this way? Lorred, sustain me, because because the dirt can't sing your praises. And if I'm in the dirt, I can't do. So so sustain me so that I can give you And the somers is saying, I need your sustenance. I need your

revival so that I can actually oh, obeyed. And the somers is saying, I need your sustenance. I need your revival so that I can actually

oh, obeyed. So that I so that I can actually obey you. And because I feel like I deserve a life. And and I want to use my life. I want my life to be expended in the obedience.

And so this is this is our call. We may be worn out. We may be overwhelmed. We may be wondering if we can go. And yet the same word that has sustained the psalmist can sustain you.

So hold fast to the word of God and cry out to and if you're like, well, I don't I don't necessarily connect with the somnost right now. Is what you need to do is you need to be working to build yourself such a firm foundation on the word of God that when that point comes and when that point comes, and when that point comes, and when that point comes, and when that point comes, and

when that point comes, and when that point comes,

and when Jesus said, right? The wise man built his house on the rock, the reins came tumbling down, but the house on the rock stands firm. Because they look really deceptive off. And it's the word of God that will give us the the