Hello dear friends,
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in Jesus’ name,
Beginning September 19th, Grace Baptist will move to its Fall Schedule. We will offer Sunday School at 9:15 and then Worship together at 10:30. People have enjoyed the 10:00am worship time this past summer—but a 10:30 adjustment will help us provide a Sunday School experience. This Sunday is also National Back to Church Sunday, where 1,000’s of churches across the country are inviting people back to church. I pray that many will come as a result and hear the good news of the Gospel and be built up in their faith. I will be launching a mini-series on hope, which is a Christian grace that we all need. So, come and join in. Following Sunday’s service, we will be enjoying a potluck lunch together, so please bring some food to share.
So why is hope so important? Well, because hope reduces the feeling of helplessness, it increases happiness, it reduces stress, and improves our quality of life. It also has health benefits. Research shows that people who score high in hope have better psychological health. That translates into lower levels of depression and anxiety, and higher levels of happiness and well-being. People who score very low in hope really struggle in their lives.
To have hope is to want an outcome that makes your life better in some way. It not only can help make a tough present situation more bearable but can also eventually improve our lives because envisioning a better future motivates you to take the steps to make it happen. Whether we think about it or not, hope is a part of everyone’s life. Everyone hopes for something. It’s an inherent part of being human. Hope helps us define what we want in our futures and is part of the self-narrative about our lives we all have running inside our minds.
Our culture defines hope as, “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” It is more of a wish. Its strength is the strength of the person’s desire. But in the Bible, hope is “the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness.” We are creatures who long for and need hope because the God of all hope has placed hope in our hearts. I Corinthians 13:13 says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” We often talk of faith and love—but today I want to speak about “hope.”
Hope, meaning “the confident expectation of what God has promised,” is seen throughout the Bible. And one place I would like for us to look is to Psalm 43…
“1 Vindicate me, my God,
and plead my cause
against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
deceitful and wicked.
2 You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?
3 Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.”
In the Hebrew manuscripts, Psalm 42 and 43 are listed as one Psalm—though they are two independent songs of praise written by the Sons of Korah. He is lamenting the fact that many were unfaithful to God in his day. His hope? He wanted God to vindicate him and plead his cause. No doubt it was the cause of God. He wanted righteousness and justice to be upheld in his day. Just like we would like to see today. But sometimes we feel like the unfaithful, the wicked and deceitful are winning the day, which is a cause for despair. So, the psalmist, (and we), should cry out to God for His rescue from them.
So why should we cry out to God instead of fixing the problem ourselves? Verse two tells us that it is God who is our stronghold. He is our strength. He is the God who has rescued Israel over and over in the past. God said, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty,” Zechariah 4:6. We are to cry out to God because ultimately, He is the only One that can truly save. But when He doesn’t do it in the time we want, we feel rejected and abandoned. This leads to questioning God and discouragement. Note that the psalmist goes on to say, “Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Our unmet expectation causes frustration, pain, and a sense of loss.
It’s in those times that we need to exercise our faith in God. Notice how the psalmist prays to the God of heaven. He asks for four things: First, the psalmist prays for light. We are not talking about sunshine; rather he is talking about spiritual understanding. He wants God to help him understand why He hasn’t intervened yet. This is a good prayer to pray. Like James tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God and that God would send it. Send the light God. Please! (See James 1:5-8)
Second, the psalmist prays for God’s faithful care. In other words, if God isn’t going to alleviate the situation, then maybe God could render His care so that he can bear up under the strain of the situation. Jesus did not promise us a life free from persecution. Quite the opposite—He said if they persecuted Him… they would also persecute His followers. Blessed are you, Jesus said, “when people persecute you because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:10. We are blessed because of His faithful care in the midst of persecution.
Next, the psalmist asks that the first two things, God’s light and God’s faithful care, would be the two things that leads him in the midst of his difficulties. In other words, he doesn’t want to lose sight of what God is doing. He wants these two things to be his guiding principles. Much like the pillar of fire guiding the children of Israel in the desert, and having God’s presence in the camp—so we would want to follow Him in this way.
And lastly, the psalmist asks that as a result God would lead him to a specific place. He wanted to be led to God’s holy mountain—which is the mounting where God dwells. This, of course, was Jerusalem. God’s Temple was there. God met with His people there. The point of God leading us is that we would find Him. He is our destination. That is our ultimate hope. The point of walking in righteousness isn’t so that we might get something “from God” to enjoy and then go on our way without Him. No, the point is that we might truly find God. What are we going to do when we find Him?
Verse 4 says that we will worship. First, we will go to the altar of God. The altar is where sins were atoned for in the Old Testament. Why? So that they might enjoy right-relationship with God. Sins separate us from Him. Jesus came and atoned for the sin of the world on the cross. He is now the new and living way to God. Once we are in God’s presence, we experience His Joy. God is our delight. He is why we are living. To know Him is to know life. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me,” John 14:6. His light and faithful care are to bring us to Him, and to Him alone. And then what shall we do? The psalmist says, “I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Which is another way of saying, “I’m going to sing songs to you because you are MY one true God.” Just like what Paul says in Ephesians 5:19-20 “Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So now, after surveying the unfaithful, wicked, and deceitful people and getting all flustered in spirit—the psalmist draws this song to a conclusion in verse 5. He asks himself, “Why am I downcast and so disturbed inside?” He has all of these assurances of who God is. He has affirmed that God is his stronghold, and he has requested God’s light and faithful care to lead him. He mentally assesses the situation and says to himself— “get a grip friend!” Exercise your faith! What you need to do is to put your hope in God. You know it—now do it! Sometimes we have to take ourselves by the back of the neck and say, “Self! Get yourself to God. Put your hope in Him. Put your confident expectation in what God has promised because He is faithful.
And then after you have done that—declare to yourself that you will continue to praise Him. Why? Because He really is your Savior and your God. When you are down and discouraged it might be well to sing such a song to God. Perhaps, one like Thomas Chisholm’s hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”
“Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father!
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not:
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness,
Great is Thy faithfulness,
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me! Amen”
Dear friend, if you are struggling in this hour… exercise your faith this moment and declare to yourself, “Put your hope in God.” And He will strengthen you with His light and faithful care, and then lead you to Himself where you will find joy for your soul.
Benediction:
“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 (NIV2011)
Pastor Russ Hilsinger,
Grace Baptist Church of Dallas, Oregon
P.S. Don’t forget the schedule change on September 19th: Sunday school will start at 9:15 am; and Worship will begin at 10:30. Thank you.