Beacon Sunday Service August 27th 2023

For your service this morning. Kids be blessed. For those uh for the for the rest of us, if we could just turn our attention to the screen, we're gonna go over just a couple of quick announcements. Um as you guys already know, uh the children's ministry is is always looking for helpers, and so if you have uh any desire or any sort of tugging at your heart to serve, please feel free to reach out to uh Tiffany or myself, and we'll be glad to get you guys plugged in one way. Uh additionally, we've got uh our our offering options that are listed up here. Uh, for those of you guys that are visiting, again, we just want to remind you that your presence here is more than a gift enough to us, but for those that are um regular attending or or even members, uh, we just continue to ask that you guys give uh as the Lord leads.

Um other announcements for us this morning? No. Right. Alright, well, with that, um, I have the uh distinct pleasure of entry. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We've got a town hall. Yes, the T for town hall. Um we actually have a town hall next Sunday, so shortly after service. We just want to uh invite folks just to stay put. I know it's Labor Day weekend, I know folks may have plans or go out, but um we simply just want to again just give the whole church an update on the progress of our pastoral search as well as other things that are going on here. And so if you guys could just please mark your calendars for next Sunday. Believe that's the second. No, that's not the second. The third. The third. Sunday, September 3rd, right after service, we will have our town hall.

So please please be there for that. Awesome. And so uh with that again, um sorry, there's like a false star, Keith. But uh Keifong is our guest speaker today. Uh just a little bit about Keith before he joins us here. Uh he's a graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in engineering physics. Uh he spent some time working in the software industry, um, doing software support. Uh he now lives in Torrance, California, uh, just to worship and serve at uh the Lighthouse Community Church. And he is currently a pastoral intern uh for the youth ministry at Lighthouse, as well as a student at Master Seminary. Uh and again, uh Lord willing, he will complete his uh masters of divinity uh in May of 2024. And so with that, could we just please give a round of applause to Keith Fong, our guest speaker today?

Hunday everyone. Um do you mind turning me down? Thanks I think uh I shout sometimes and I don't want to break anyone's eardrums. So happy Sunday. Um welcome from or hi from Lighthouse Community Church. Uh, we're really thankful for you all. I think uh Kim preached last Sunday, right? So he was telling uh us on staff just how encouraged he was by you and how thankful he was to be able to serve you. Um we're sending, I think, a few other people uh to preach for you on some Sundays coming up. Um think of it this way there's like pastors, and then there's like ministry associates, and there's like me, like way down here. So you're gonna like the bottom of the barrel today, I'm sorry. But that's that's what you're getting from me.

Um I'm really thankful to be here today. Uh thank you so much for inviting me to serve and cover minutes for the words to you. Um, like you said, um I'm serving the youth ministry, which means most of my Fridays are filled with junior hires asking me questions like Did Adam have a belly button? And one snacks. Um that's that's my Friday session. Um I love them. They're rambunctious, and seeing your kids here reminds me of them. So yeah, it's really uh a really great blessing to serve them. Please turn with me in your Bible to do the book of Psalms. When I was a kid, I didn't like the Psalms. They're so hard to relate to. Enemies chasing me, tears dissolving my bed, like suffering. It all seemed so melodramatic.

So over the top. I don't think that anymore. The psalms are the prayer books of the Bible. Its pages are stained with tears and wrinkled from the hardships of life. And in his kindness, God has taken certain psalms and engrave them upon my heart. Psalm 90 is the psalm I read with my grandma as she lay dying on her hospital bed. The last time I saw her, we're at the psalm together, and she entered into glory.

With no hope at the end, was my psalm and prayer when my friend's brother died from a heart infection at the age of 19. Psalm 94, which begins, Oh Lord, God in vengeance, oh God of vengeance shine forth. That was my battle cry. In the darkest, lowest season of my life. Psalm 73, the Psalm of ASAP is where I go when I want comfort. When it seems like everyone else gets what they want from God, but he holds, withholds all his blessings from me. Psalm 23 is where I go when I need to be confronted, when I need to be comforted, and we need to confess. Psalm 51 is where I go to when I need to confess my sin. Psalm 63 is where I go when my love for God is waning. Psalm 103 is where I need comfort, that God knows me and cares for me.

Psalm 119 is where I go when my love for God's word grows cold. God gave us the Psalms as our prayer book. They give voice to the cries of our heart. They give form to our emotions and our turmoil. They give us words to lament to God with boldness. They give us praises to sing to God in every darkness. The Psalms are for every season of the Christian life. And today I want to preach to you Psalm 42 and 43, which should be treated as one unit, because in many ways these Psalms are the anthem from our life. When darkness will not lift, when despair and hopelessness and pessimism and melancholy and discouragement block out the sun of God's light.

My fellow soldiers in the fight for joy and for faith. And I think the Psalm can be really, really encouraging for you as you walk through your own valleys of darkness, as God brings you through your own seasons of trial and suffering. So may they become your nights, your light in the nights of the soul and your friends. So please stand as we read Psalm 42 and 43 together. I'll be reading from the Legacy Standard Bible translation, which I don't usually do, but I like the translation. I think it does a good job. And if you could, please read out loud with me the bold portions.

So my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day, where is your God? These things I remember, and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with a throng and lead in a procession to the house of God with the shout, with the sound of a shout of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Read verse 5 with me. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise him for the salvation of his presence. Oh my God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon from Mount Nazar.

Deep calls the deep at the sound of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have rolled over me. By day Yahweh will command his loving kindness, and by night, his song will be with me. A prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries approach me. Oh, they say to me all day long, where is your God? Verse 11, let's read together. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise him, the salvation of my presence and my God. Psalm 43. Give justice to me, O God, and plead my case against an unholy nation.

O protect me from the deceitful and unrighteous man. For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain and to your dwelling places. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. And upon the lyre, I shall praise you, O God, my God. And lastly, let's read verse 5 together. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise him. The salvation of my presence and my God. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. And pray with me. Father, we praise you.

For you're the maker of heaven and earth. I thank you for the blessing it was to sing to you, to confess our sins to you, to be assured, Lord, that we are pardoned in the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess, Father, that this week, maybe even today, have been full of sorrow and hardship, sufferings and darkness. And we confess, Lord, we need hope. We need light. We need a joy, Lord, that goes deep, that transcends all the pain and the suffering of this life. Would you give us hope this morning through your word in your Son? It's in his perfect name we pray. Amen. Life is hard. It hurts, suffering stings. What do you do when you suffer?

Where do you go to? Where do you run? If you're like me, you're tempted to just go numb. To put your head down, grind through the pain. You bury your emotions, you act like everything's fine. And instead of bringing your whole self to God in prayer and worship in song and lament, you give him a fake version. And you treat him as if he can't really handle your true self. Or at the very least that he cannot be trusted to handle which you really feel.

The great truths you once loved lose their color. The joy of the Lord fades.

So we pray half-hearted prayers and we live half-hearted lives. We give to God half-hearted praise and half-hearted sacrifice. We're never really that disappointed when he doesn't give us what we ask for. Because we never really expected anything from him, anyways. Psalm 42 and 43 teach us a better way to respond to suffering. Even in despair, the psalmist finds hope in God.

And he does that by bringing his suffering to the Lord, instead of allowing his suffering to push him away from God.

First, Psalm 42, verses 1 to 5, is hope in God, for he is your satisfaction. Secondly, hope in God, for he is your comfort. That's Psalm 42, verses 6 to 11. And third is hope in God, for he is your joy. Psalm 43. My brother, my sister, in any and every circumstance, you can hope in God. Not because of who you are, as if you're strong, or if you're disciplined, or you just do all the right things, but because of who he is.

He's the one who satisfies your thirst. He's the one who comforts you in every affliction. He's the one who fills you with joy, even in the midst of despair.

So let's learn from these Psalms and learn to hope in God even in the midst of our despair.

Hope in God, for he is your satisfaction. Look at verse 1 with me. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. The idea of panting and thirsting here is of having a longing so great it hurts. Or Psalm 63 says, O God, you are my God. I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you. In a dry and weary land, where there is no water. The psalmist feels like a soul is parched. Like he's a he's a vagrant in the desert with no joy, no hope, no love. He's wandering in a spiritual wasteland, desperate for life, desperate for hope, desperate for God. Why? Because God feels far. In verse 2, he continues, he says, When shall I come and appear before God?

This is this is expresses a desire to go and worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Later on in the Psalm in verse 6, he says that he is actually far from Jerusalem, far from the city of God, north in Mount Hermon. That's more than a hundred miles away from the city of Jerusalem. So the psalmist feels distant from God because the center of worship is geographically far from him. But more importantly, he feels distant from God because it feels like God has abandoned him. Later in the Psalm in verse 9, he says, I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? In Psalm 43, verse 2, he says, You are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me?

Why do I feel like God had left him? He speaks of oppression of the enemy twice in Psalm 42 9 and Psalm 43 2. He speaks of the approach of adversaries in 42 10. He speaks of an unholy nation that is opposed to him. He speaks of a deceitful and unrighteous man. But we don't know the details. Whatever it was, it was the heaviest of pressures caused by living in a sin cursed earth, just like us. What's your suffering? What area of your life do you struggle to find hope in God? Even though the psalmist looked for relief, he found none. And two things in particular added salt to the wound. Mockers and memories. First mockers, look in verse 3 with me. He says, My tears have been my food day and night.

While they say to me all the day, where is your God? These mockers, they say to him, Why hasn't your God shown up? You've prayed and you prayed and you prayed, and what happens? Nothing. And the psalmist eats his tears as if they were food. Because in a sense, he agrees. He has prayed. And God has not answered. The second thing that twists the knife in his heart are the memories. And it's a good memory that taunts him. Verse 4 says that he used to be a worship leader. He used to lead the throng of people in Jerusalem with joy, with loud praise. But now he's far from the people of God. And he has no friend.

How will we respond? In your life, how have you responded to suffering? Either now or in the past.

Look at verse 5. The chorus.

And why are you disturbed within me? The psalmist interrogates himself. He says, Why are you in despair, O soul? In other words, why are you so down? Why are you so discouraged? Why are you so depressed? So despondent. The Hebrew word for despair paints a picture of someone who's dissolved into the dust. As of someone who's functionally surrendered himself to death. And then he asks, why are you disturbed, O soul? That's that is, why are you unsettled? Why are you in turmoil? Why there's so much stress within you? You know, after a long day of work, or maybe there's a long season of life. You come home, and you sink into your chair, and you just go, ugh. This groan, right? That's what he's talking about here.

It's a complaint of the soul. It's something that's almost unintelligible, something he cannot put into words. Now notice these questions. Why are you in despair? Why are you so disturbed? He's not talking to God. They're not a prayer. He's talking to himself. He says, Why are you like this, soul? Why are you so stubborn in your sadness? What's wrong with you? Why are you keeping moping around all the time? Why, soul? Because he can't figure it out. He cannot fix his own problem. Hope and light and joy have flown away like on the wings of a bird. And despondency, darkness, and desperation and become and squatted as unwelcome company. With such an ailment, what do you do? Look at the second half of verse 5.

He says, wait for God, for I shall still praise him for the salvation of his presence. The phrase wait for God is a phrase usually translated, hope in God, means the same thing. It basically means to wait upon God to act according to his promises, to do what he says he will do for you. It means to put all of your expectation upon him and to wait perseveringly for him to fulfill his promises. As you wait for him to provide future salvation.

Christ, our sure and steady anchor, our ballast in the storm. It's as if you've fallen off a cliff and you've just barely managed to cling to a branch. And you cling to that branch with all your life. Because you cannot let go unless you die. And you hope and you know that God will come and rescue you. But why does the psalmist tell his soul to wait for God? How is that the solution to his spiritual depression? Because of what verse 1 and 2 says. It says, As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. It's God that he longs for. He's tasting and seen that God is good and that God is his soul satisfaction. He doesn't simply pray that the suffering would go away.

He doesn't simply pray that the mockery would stop. He doesn't simply pray that he would get his way in life. He tells his soul to take heart because God is coming for him. Because God will make all things right. He sees God as the one who quenches his thirst, as the relief of the soul, as the deliverance from his oppression. In your suffering, what's God doing? Probably a million different things, many of which we'll never know. But in every trial, he purposes to persuade us that what we really need is Him. This is shown in places like 1 Peter 1, verse 6 to 7, Romans 8 18, Psalm 73. But the truth is summarized really well, I think, in the last stanza of a hymn by John Newton called I Ask the Lord, where God says to the suffering saints, these trials I implore from self and pride to set thee free, and break thy schemes of earthly joy, that thou might find thy all in me.

God is intent on breaking our sinful love for other things, that our faith might be purified, that our love would be refined. And we would say with the psalmists, I want you, God. I found all that I need and all that I want in you and you alone. That's what the psalmist suffering has pushed him. So now he waits for God in faith, as the only one who can actually satisfy. In your despair, hope in God. Cry to him.

Stanza number two. Hope in God, for he is your comfort. Verses 6 to 11. Look at verse 6 with me. Oh my God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Israel. Mount Hermon is about 9,000 feet above sea level, and so therefore, during the winter it snows. And during the springtime, that snow melts into water. It trickles and streams, then gushes into the River Jordan, which runs north to south in Israel. The psalmist thinks upon these waterfalls and sees these deep pools and these gushing torrents, and hears their powerful roaring and thinks, verse 7. All your breakers, that's the white foam you see on the top of oceans, on the ocean waves, all your breakers and your waves have rolled over me.

To unwrap the metaphor, he feels oppressed by the sufferings that God himself has brought into his life. But the details are a little puzzling. Rivers don't have breakers, and they don't have waves. So what's the psalmist talking about? You could in your Bibles turn me, turn with me to Jonah chapter 2. Jonah chapter 2. In Jonah chapter 2, he's reflecting as he's drowning at the bottom of the ocean because of God's righteous judgment. Remember, God told him to go to Nineveh, and he went exactly the opposite way, fleeing from God, because he did not want those people to be saved. In Jonah 2, it says this. Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the stomach of the fish. And he said, I called out of my distress to Yahweh.

And he answered me. I cried for help from the belly of Sheol. You heard my voice. For you had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current surrounded me. All your breakers and your waves passed over me. So I said, I have been driven away from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple. Although I can't be dogmatic, I think the psalmist in Psalm 42 is quoting Jonah. Because he reads Jonah 2, and he says, That's me. Like Jonah, I feel like you're killing me, God. You throw me into the depths I can't get out of. You've plunge me under the waves of sorrow and despair. I can't catch a break, Lord. I'm drowning here. Why? Why? The psalmist says he feels the same despair as Jonah.

As Jonah felt as a drowning man at the bottom of the ocean, as the persecuted prophet. And yet he says, I have the same hope. I have the same hope because I'm the same God. Look at Psalm 43, verse 3. It says, Oh, send out your light in your truth. Let them lead me, let them bring me to your holy mountain into your dwelling places. And in Jonah 2 4, Jonah says, I've been driven away from your sight. Nevertheless, I'll look again toward your holy temple. So holy places, dwelling places, toward your temple. They have the same hope. The psalmist is confident that just as God wrought salvation for Jonah as he was drowning at the bottom of the sea, God will also rescue him from his despair. And the psalmist continues in verse 8.

Psalm 42, verse 8. By day, Yahweh will command his loving kindness. And by night, his song will be with me. A prayer to the God of my life. So dear Christian, even in your suffering, God in his love for you remains unchanged. He commands his loving kindness. That means his steadfast love, his loyal, unending, forever covenantal love for you. By day, this love surrounds you. By night, his songs comfort you. This is the love and comfort of Yahweh. That's Yahweh's Yahweh's God's covenant name, his relational name, his name that promises to do all that he said he will do, to protect, to guard, to save his people. Yahweh the living God, Yahweh the promise keeper.

If we could just believe this one thing, that God actually loves us and he's for us, even in our suffering, that he'll never leave us nor forsake us. How many nights of despair would turn to mourning? How much despair will be broken by delight? Recall this to mind, my brothers and sisters, and then you can have hope. His loving kindness never ceases. His compassion is never fail. They're new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. You must not interpret God through the lens of your suffering. You must interpret your suffering through the lens of God. And the lens of God is this. God is good, God is perfect, and God is love. Therefore, any storm or any catastrophe or any suffering he brings into your life is dictated, controlled, and constrained by his perfect goodness, his perfection, and his loving kindness.

The breakers and the ways may roll, and suffering hurts. But they're God's breakers, and they're God's waves, and they obey the voice and the will of their master. They will accomplish his good and perfect and loving purpose. Nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Isn't that the epitome of our comfort? Isn't that what we run to over and over again in the gospel of Jesus Christ? The God is for us. What more could he give? Just as a parent does not spare the rod because of his love for his erring child, so too, God does not immediately take away the pain. But in his love, he holds us through it. Even still, after meditating upon God's loving kindness, the psalmist immediately turns back to his suffering.

Look at verse 9. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Here he gives us language to put our deepest feelings into words in a way that's productive and Godward. These verses show us what it is to lament. And I'll define lament really quickly as complaining honestly in faith to God. I mean, verse 9, he says, Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go on mourning? To say such things honestly doesn't shock God. We should be honest, bold in what we say to him. To be clear, God is not our punching bag. We don't accuse him of doing wrongdoing and in unrighteous anger. If we do that, it's not faithful lament. That's that's sin. But in true lament, we tell to God what he already knows.

We tell him our pain, we tell him our sorrow, we tell him why we're crying. And since he already knows everything about us, we can trust him with our true selves, even the most messed up parts of our lives. We can trust it and put it into his lovely hands. For me, the psalms like this have been one of the greatest encouragements to pray, honestly. And in particular, it's encouraged me to pray this these psalms out loud. So go to your closet, go to your office, go to your room, go to your car, and cry out to God. Say the words of the psalmist out loud and lament in faith. To try to try to bypass lament is to try to short circuit the journey from the valley to the mountaintop. Is to insist on this like instant microwave Christianity that's not the real deal, that doesn't actually satisfy.

Faith is a fight. You have to not need to fight to not give in to despair. Look at verse 11 with me. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise him, the salvation of my presence and my God. Again, the chorus is not a prayer, it's an exhortation to his own soul. And the psalmist is spiritually depressed, he's struggling. And so he goes to war with himself. Commenting on this verse on spiritual depression, Dr. Martin Lord Jones, famous preacher in London in the 20th century. He says this. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?

His proposed remedy. Preach to yourself. Question yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself, Hope thou in God, instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. Remind yourself of God, who he is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged himself to do. That's good, right? When you're spiritually depressed, you must command your soul. You must command your feelings. You must command your all to believe and to bow to what you know is true. Make it your war chant, your battle cry, your blood oath. Hope in God, O soul, I will praise him. Don't obey your feelings. Make your feelings obey God. That doesn't mean you bury your feelings or deny your despair, as I hope it made clear, but it means you can put your hope in God and sing to God your Savior, even when you don't feel like it.

Even when you feel like doing anything but that.

We to put a stubbornness, a godly stubbornness back in sanctification, a fight back into faith. As Lloyd Jones says, even in your despair, defy yourself and defy other people and defy the devil and the whole world and say with this man, I shall yet praise him. So hope in God, beloved. Fight back against the despair of your own heart. Raise high the lampstand of God's love and hope and peace and the darkness for your night. Hope in God, for he is your comfort. Stanza 3. Hope in God, for he is your joy. And in this last stanza, we see how the psalmist has progressed. In the first stanza, he mainly just talked about his suffering. In the second stanza, he mostly brought that suffering to God. And this last stanza, he prays, he begs God to intervene.

Psalm 43, verse 1. Give justice to me, O God, and plead my case against an unholy nation. Oh, protect me from the deceitful and unrighteous man, for you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain to your dwelling places. Then I will go to the altar of God. To God, my exceeding joy. And upon the lyre I'll shall praise you, O God, my God. And listen to his pleas. Give me justice. Plead my case. Protect me. Send out your light and your truth. Lead me. Bring me to your holy mountain. These are bold prayers. These are desperate prayers.

Someone who's begging God to act. I don't know about your circles, but in my circles, I think sometimes we're just too proud to beg. We're too proud to get on our knees, to cry hot tears of faith, and to beg the Almighty God of the universe to actually hear us, to actually do something, to change our circumstances. Yes, we should pray. Thy will be done, Lord. But the Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible. And they teach us to pray like this. As if the God of heaven and earth can actually do something, can actually enter into our despair, change our lives, transform our hearts, and bring us back to blessed hope and peace and joy. So when the darkness will not lift, when God seems far, when God himself brings the storm of suffering into your life, pray, beg, plead, cry, like the psalmist.

Psalm 88, verse 14, Lord, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? Psalm 90, verse 13. Do return, O Lord. How long will it be? Be sorry for your servants. Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days.

Be my strength, my fortress, my refuge, my strong tower. Do not forsake me. Lead me in your holiness. Teach me your perfect truth. Be to me my God, my God of my exceeding joy. Help me sing, even in the night. I want you, Lord. No one and nothing else will do. And then, however, God chooses to answer, whether he takes away your suffering or extends mercy to comfort you, or he presses the pain deeper into your heart to make you know and love him. Take a battle cry again of the chorus of these Psalms, verse 5. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Wait for God, for I shall still praise him, the salvation of my presence and my God. In any and every circumstance, in the darkest of despair, we can put our hope in him.

He is our God. He's our salvation, our satisfaction, our comfort, our joy. There's no one else but him. Let's pray. Father, in the psalmists, in the Psalms, we see true faith as it crashes into real life. And more than anything, Lord, we beg that we will be able to pray with the psalmists. Whom have we in heaven but you? And apart from you, we desire nothing on the earth. Our flesh and my heart may fail. Our storms and our suffering may seem to drown us. But you are the strength of our hearts and our portion forever. Teach us, Lord, to believe that with all that we are. For the glory of Christ is in his perfect name we pray.