When God Feels Distant (Various Passages)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

Well from last week

What we learned is that Jesus is going to be leaving his disciples soon

He's gonna be Stepping away for a moment and we take that to understand not just That he's going back to heaven, but also that he is going to be going to the cross and to that cross

He would go then to the grave to wrestle sin and to defeat The the sin and curse that keeps us alienated from God on John 13

We saw that it was dark not just because it was nighttime And the gospel of John darkness is enigmatic or it is idiomatic of separation from God When we see darkness in John's gospel

It tells us that people are confused that they're that they're lost that they're broken Then it says that men love the darkness rather than the light darkness is judgment in John's gospel and we see that The Pharisees are living in darkness because they hate

Christ Judas is living in darkness because he betrays Christ and Yet we even see that Jesus was willing to let his disciples for a moment walk through darkness

To allow them to be confused to allow them to deny him three times to allow them to scatter

Now unlike the world they're not gonna live in darkness forever But Christ is going to let them for a moment

Because of his mere good pleasure walk through darkness and It's for his purposes and for his glory that he does so we see this in verse 33 of John 13

I said last week that we were closing out John 13, but I tricked you First 33 says my little children.

I am with you a little while longer You will seek me and as I said to the

Jews now I also say to you where I am going you cannot come

Now obviously this was a unique situation That is it's not something that is repeatable.

We are not the disciples We are not in the upper room with Jesus We're not having the the pep talk that he's giving them where he is going to go to the cross in that moment

And they're gonna be left without him in Jerusalem. We don't live there We don't we don't know exactly what that moment would have felt like But this passage does have relevance to our life

Because there are moments in our life where we have felt and I don't mean that we have

That that this is actual where God's presence has been removed from us, but there are moments where we felt like that Where we felt like we were in the darkness where we felt like God was a million miles away from us

Where we where we perceived that God was distant where our prayers felt like that. They were banging against the ceiling

We know in the scriptures that God has not left us or forsaken us or abandoned us there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and yet Our feelings sometimes are fickle our experiences sometimes are

Different than what we have is our reality The reality is is that Christ dwells with us through his spirit and that there's nowhere

High as the heavens are down to Sheol where we can go from his presence and yet we sometimes

Though he'd be perfectly present with us Have a really hard time perceiving it.

Sometimes we don't perceive it at all Today, I want to explore the question.

Why is it that sometimes we feel like God is distant from us? We know that he's not but why is it that sometimes that that's how we feel?

When there's times and seasons when it seems like God is unmoved for God is Far away from us that he doesn't hear our prayers.

Why is it that that happens and there are many reasons that I can describe to you on why this reality occurs

First and foremost, I think our sinfulness When we sin

When we grieve the Holy Spirit of God God chastens us as his children and he allows the goodness of his presence

To become the judgment as a mom or as a dad would bring Punishment on their children.

Sometimes that is the reason why we feel God is aloof or distant If you've ever been in the room with an angry spouse you were right beside of them and yet they feel a million miles away sometimes that is the presence of God that we feel and Yet there are other times

When that's not the case now, we're always a sinner We always are struggling with sin, but there are times when we're doing the same things that we were doing

We're reading every morning. We're praying. We're repenting. We're doing all of the things that we used to do and Yet we don't feel it and it feels distant from us now the first thing

I would tell you is a Broken thermometer doesn't dictate how hot it is outside a

Broken clock doesn't dictate what time it is. It's right twice a day, but then most of the other times it's not God's experience or our experience of God's presence

Does not dictate the truthfulness of God's presence. That's not what we're talking about today. We are talking about experience

Why do we sometimes feel like we're far away from God? How do we explain that?

And this question is important to me Because I've asked myself that question many times

There'll be times when I'm praying and it feels like my heart is anxious Where I feel like that that I'm in a fog or I'm in the darkness even there'll be times when

I'm reading scripture And I don't feel close to God. There are other times. I feel like I'm on the mountain with God And I don't think

I'm the only one who's had different experiences day to day The ebb and flow of your walk with God.

Why is that the case? What I was taught growing up is That your relationship with God it was never said in these terms

But this is the way that I was taught that is it sort of like a quid pro quo Sort of relationship if I repent of my sins and I do the right things and I read scripture

I go to church. I pray I sing I do all that then God will necessarily give me the joy of his presence and There are many times that that did not line up with my experience and it caused me to have a performance driven faith

Where I would work and I would work and I would work and I would do everything I could because I believe that God's Presence or my experience of it was dependent upon my effort

Every time God shares his presence with us its grace There is never a time that we deserve the experience of his presence

And it just doesn't line up with what we see in Scripture For instance think about the man Job. Job was called a righteous man in the beginning of the book

God himself calls Job a righteous man and yet Job suffered Job cries out and says

God. Why are you far from me? God wasn't far from Job Job couldn't feel it though Think about David There's so many of the

Psalms where David saying Lord come back to me. Do we believe that God abandoned David? No But David's experience of God felt distant

Look at Jesus himself in the garden. He's praying and he's crying out tears of blood on the cross

He says my god. My god. Why have you forsaken me? Sometimes God for his own purposes

Allows us to feel like David or Job where we feel like we're distant from God Now today

I want to share 13 things Hook seatbelt We're not gonna answer the question why today because I don't think

I'm equipped to answer the question why and I don't think Scripture really Teaches us exactly why there are some times where God allows us to experience this over Abundance of joy where we're on the mountaintop and there's other times where we don't

I don't want to deal with the question of why? Today what I want to deal with the question is how? How should we reflect about our experience of God's presence?

How should we think about it? We'll cover six things in that section and Then the second thing

I want us to do is when we have a moment like this where we feel like God is far away I want you to remember the seven things that we're gonna talk about us 13 7 things that we're gonna end with I Think the sermon will be really practical

Because there will be a time where you will feel far from God and I want you to know these 13 things I wish someone would have told me these 13 things

So with that, let us pray and let us dive in Lord Jesus We thank you that our feelings don't dictate reality

We thank you that our experience Doesn't define what is actual

Lord we know that you will never leave us or forsake us. There's therefore now no Condemnation for those who are in Christ.

You have indwelled us by your spirit You live with us because of your omnipresence and you are Working out the good for all of those who are called according your purpose

We know those things and yet sometimes our flesh and our heart fail Sometimes we experience despair.

Sometimes we experience despondency sometimes like Elijah. We cry out. Am I the only one? Lord, I pray that today as we reflect upon our frail and Why we sometimes feel distant from you

Lord, I pray that this would be a great encouragement to your people Lord, I pray that the tools and The theology that is undergirding this message would inform our hearts in such a way

That when we go through these moments that we would have biblical ground to stand on to have joy

Whether we are in tears Whether the situation that has happened to us is the most painful thing that we've ever walked through Lord, I pray that what we learn today would cause us to have joy even in the darkest times

To never be given over to despair Lord, we ask these things in Christ name.

Amen Why does God sometimes feel distant from our experience? Why are there seasons of spiritual dryness and deadness?

Why does this occur? Well, the first thing that we should reflect upon is God's providence

God has a right over the experience of his presence Here's a principle for us to consider

God has every right and ability to give and to take away the experience of his presence as he deems appropriate

When we think about the doctrine of God's sovereignty, we are talking about one of the best and most hopeful and most

Beautiful doctrines in Scripture that we tend to chafe at and ignore We tend to recoil when we think about the sovereignty of God and yet it's the sovereignty of God that causes us to be able to sleep at night

Sovereignty means God has every right and every ability and every power to accomplish whatever he wills and whatever he wills is what happens

There's nothing that happens outside of God's will Which means that this is where sovereignty rubs us a little every pain every displeasure every discomfort every situation that you've walked through is not by accident or happenstance and God is not up in heaven saying

I Can't believe that happened Everything that happens is consistent with the will of God for his glory and For your good, even if it doesn't feel like it's good

Job says this in chapter 23 verse 16. It is God who made my heart fail and The Almighty who has dismayed me

He's saying it's not an accident God has done this Look at Jeremiah.

He's also a man acquainted with great grief. He says in Lamentations 3 Verses 2 and 8 he has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light

Even when I cry out for help he shuts out my prayer These are not verses that you will get on Christmas cards

These are not verses that you text to your friends just found this encouraging one brother.

He shuts out your prayers And yet is it this the Word of the Lord This inflicts the sort of inner drama queen within us.

It really Really God But the question

I want to ask us is do we have a cause to be angry over? Verses like this We have all sinned and all fallen short of the glory of God and I would guarantee

I can't make this statement in in full but I would say all of us have done that today and God says that when you sin in the day that you do it you will surely die

That means that every one of us who have sinned all of us in this room deserve to die and yet here we are

To live another day and another day and another day If we're alive here today,

God has been exceedingly unimaginably gracious and If you're saved how much more?

We tend to think about the fact that that how unfair it is that God allows people to go to hell

How unfair is it that they live on this earth and breathe out rage against God and he allows them to do it and blesses them

How how unfair is it that us who are objects of his wrath rebels who hated

God By the death of his own son have been brought in It goes beyond mercy mercy is not getting what you deserve.

Grace is getting what you should not have We should not be saved

It does not belong to us. There's nothing we could do to earn it. It is only by God crushing his only son

That you and I could experience salvation When you think about it like that if your salvation is the only good thing that ever happened to you and I mean this if every day of your life is misery if every moment of your existence is futile and painful and awful and Let's say that you lived a hundred and twenty years just to prolong your suffering

If that is the case You are still more blessed than you could ever possibly imagine you say, how is that possible?

Because for a hundred and twenty years of toil God has rescued you for an eternity of blessings

It doesn't matter it does our pain is real but ultimately in light of eternity it doesn't matter

All of the hurt and the pain in light of eternity, it's light It's momentary.

It's working for us an eternal weight of glory and yet When we compare 120 years to an eternity, it's like one grain of sand in a universe of deserts

And yet we think I don't deserve this What do you deserve brothers and sisters

Eternal Unending Unquenchable hell and God has given you a hundred years 80 years 70 years of Toil here where you have joy and you have some pain, but it's not as hot as hell 120 years at the most for an eternity of blessings you are blessed

Even if your salvation is all you ever have because if that's all you have you have everything, right?

If you never experience comfort if you never experience any other blessing you would be unimaginably blessed

It's my thought here I don't live this way But it's my thought why am

I surprised when God? Sometimes feels distant from my experience. I should actually be surprised that so many times

God is near given who I am Think about it like this if you were a thrice holy perfectly pure Never lived below your best for a moment.

You always won you always triumphed you had flawless productivity across all conceivable reality your accomplishments spanned

Eternally you never had a thought that was less than perfect. You could not be improved upon Why would you want to hang out with you?

We have trouble hanging out with people who are better than us. God is infinitely so Think about the grace that God has given us to persist with us to love us

To care for us We should not act when we go through toil or when we feel like God is

Distant from us when our experiences and our emotions are out of whack. We should not act like we've been slighted

We should remember that we've been blessed We should also remember That God is using all these things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose

Even though it doesn't feel like it's good to you. That doesn't mean that it's not good for you

You think about it when you're a two -year -old and you have to take the nasty Disgusting cough medicine and your parents are like it's good for you

Sometimes God will make you drink a bitter cup and it's good for you and it's better for you than your comfort

It's better for you than making you happy Think about the kind of people we would be if we were only ever made happy Because God is sovereign over all things and Because it's got it's perfectly good and all things and because God is perfectly wise in all things giving us joys and also giving us

Sadnesses because of that we can trust him even if we don't understand why we're going through what we're going through right now

There there are many women in this room right now who are going through things that are hard that are difficult that are painful that that are that that are weighing on you that make your heart feel like that you're in the that it's in a meat grinder of some sorts and I can look at you and honestly tell you from Scripture that it is for your good.

Even if it hurts brother and sister I'm not saying you're gonna enjoy it.

You're not sadist, but it's for your good Have hope in it have joy in it even as you hurt in it

That's the first thing we need to consider Why does God sometimes feel? distant from us because God is sovereign over these things and he's using these things to shape us into the image of his

Son and Sometimes distance is better than closeness to accomplish his purposes. That's the first thing second thing is our

Quote unquote righteousness we have to consider that Job the book is

Considering that our righteous our our righteousness our obedience and our sanctification do not obligate

God to bless us We are not Legalist who believe that if we can obey

God will accept us. God will bless us Just because we obey him does not auto magically that is a word

Lock in his presence or cause us to experience more of him. He's not a vending machine

The book of Job is predicated upon this like I said before Job is said to be righteous God says Job is righteous

The whole book is this great thought experiment about what does it look like when the righteous people suffer because in the book?

Everybody is under an assumption that righteous people don't suffer The book of Job is built upon three claims to of truth, but only two of them are true

Number one good people are blessed Number two wicked or Job is a righteous man and then number three

God is holy So Job's friends are coming and saying that God is holy

Job good people are blessed and because you're not blessed you must not be righteous Job is saying no.

No, no, I am righteous and Good people are blessed. Therefore.

God must not be holy He questions God in the book in ways that he has to repent for later and yet God calls him righteous still

God at the end of the book says the truth of the matter. I am holy Job is a righteous man and the world doesn't work like you think it does

Because good people aren't always blessed And because wicked people aren't always experiencing punishment

People that we know that are the elites of our society who are Desperately wicked people and yet it looks like by all

Accounts that they are experiencing great blessing The world does not work in the way that we think that it does

Look at how Job describes his plight This is Job 23 verses 3 and then verses 8 through 9

He doesn't describe it as the loss of material wealth or the loss of physical health he describes it like this.

Oh That I knew where I might find him. That's God That I might come to his seat

Behold I go forward but he is not there and I go backward but I cannot perceive him when he acts on the left

I cannot behold him when he turns on the right. I cannot see him Job is telling us that yeah

I lost my stuff. But the thing that I'm grieving more than anything is I don't feel like God is near He's dealing with a death

Not of his stuff Not even of his children He's dealing with the death of his own expectation

He is dealing with the fact that he thought that he was good enough righteous enough

That God would never allow him to walk through pain and He's dealing with the death of that expectation that I was righteous and I am walking through pain.

That's what Job is dealing with Where is God in that? Job could not conceive a reality where a man who's pursuing righteousness

God would allow him to fall into such travail Job at the end of the book had to get a wider view of who

God is When God takes him on a tour of the universe Versus third chapters 38 through 41 read it.

It's incredible. Job tries to repent and God says be quiet for a second I'm not done

And then in verse in chapter 42 Job says some of the most beautiful lines in Scripture.

I repent I Don't know what I was talking about. I've spoken about things that are far too beautiful for me to understand.

I Take back everything I said Job and Us need to realize that our righteousness does not obligate

God our obedience to Scripture doesn't obligate God our prayer life our fasting We can't manipulate

God into into giving us the experience that we want Sometimes God wants us to go through things that are hard because they're best for us better for us

Every time you go through something that is painful it is for your good There's never a time where God allow something to happen.

That is less than perfect in His will that is hard for us because we look at all of the brokenness and we can't conceive of the fact that it could be

God using it for good and yet God is so perfect that he can use all of these things for good does use all of these things for good

Just because we don't see it doesn't mean that it's not true Remember that God is sovereign and all of these things

Remember that he can take you through any Situation and season to turn you and make you and shape you into the man the woman the boy the girl that he wants you to become and One of the most helpful passages that you can say to yourself when you go through pain is

Job 13 15 though he slay me Yet I will praise him yet.

I will hope in him That's the sort of attitude of a of a believer that God though you slay me

Though this hurts. I'm not gonna grumble like the Israelites. I'm not gonna complain. I'm not gonna

I'm not gonna become bitter and Frustrated and turn my back on you I'm gonna hope in you even through the hardship and even through the pain how difficult

I know that that is How weekly I fail on this but I'm not preaching to you about things that I've mastered

I'm preaching you what the scriptures say and what and calling all of us to Hope in God even in hardship

The third thing we need to consider why does God sometimes feel distant to us? We need to consider past record because we play the comparison game a lot

Just because God has given a tremendous Experience to us in the past or to someone else in the past or even to someone else in the present doesn't mean that God owes us today

Psalm 44 begins this way. Oh God, we have heard with our ears. Our fathers have told us the work that you did in their day in The days of old or if you're my daughter in the olden days

Which to her was like seven years ago, by the way For by their own sword

They did not possess the land and their own arm did not save them But your right hand and your arm and the light of your presence is what saved them for you favored them

The psalmist is reminding God of the days of old when things were better when they were doing The things that that God had told them to do and God was doing the things that he promised he would do and everybody was

Experiencing great blessing and they're looking at God. They're saying God. Where are you at with us?

Why aren't you blessing us? They say in verse 17, we didn't break your covenant we obeyed

They're saying in verse 18 in verse 20, we didn't bow our knee to any idols we didn't do that Why are you not giving us the same experience that you gave them and how often do we fall into that?

When we look back in our life Maybe when we were first saved and we say man It was wonderful the amount of grace that God was given me the light that he was given me

The joy that he was given me. Why don't have that joy now? It's because you're expecting a past event that God did

Dynamically in your life to be repeated. You're in a sense treating God like he's a vending machine

Or when you look at someone else's life and you say wow, they've really they're really blessed. I wish I was like them

You're doing what the psalmist here did and you're comparing what? God did in someone else's life and saying that it should be the case in your life and what you're ultimately doing

This is tough. But what you're ultimately doing is you're saying God your will for my life is not right Your plan for my life is not best.

I know you're infinite and all I Know you're this omniscient guy

You know everything but you don't know this. This is not good for me. I want what so -and -so has When you think about it that way, it's a pretty pretty arrogant thing to say

To God who loves you more than anything. It's given you Every situation you have for your good

The psalmist cries out you've rejected us as if what we would say and Brought us to dishonor

You do not go out with our armies. You've crushed us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death

That's what we would say God we're doing the same thing that those people did

We're not dishonoring you. We're the good people We're not doing the things that the world is doing.

Why are you allowing us? To dwindle You know,

I think is it interesting in Psalm 44 is God doesn't answer them he doesn't answer their question

That doesn't mean that we get no answers We actually do get answers from this passage, but we don't get the one that we're probably looking for God doesn't give an answer as to why they're suffering in this passage he doesn't give an answer to why he's pulling back from them and allowing them to become a a a

Byword among the nations he doesn't clarify that what he does clarify is that just because your ancestors

Experienced such and such and such a thing doesn't mean you will The reason he clarifies that it's because they didn't

Experience the same thing what I love about this Is that it doesn't actually undermine

God's goodness. It reinforces it Think about it. God is relational

There's nobody There's nobody here who actually wants to be married to a robot

Or to have children who are robots you would eventually despise them Just do this when

I say a B and C or I shake this left foot you do that like nobody wants a trained dog for a spouse

Here we have an example of God dynamically Interacting with his people he gives some blessings because they don't deserve it

He gives some Suffering and yeah At some level in our sin we all deserved it

But God is uniquely interacting with his people in non repeatable ways. We can't treat

God like a formula God I did all the stuff. I Read my

Bible. I did two days today of reading. I Did my prayers

I did my my my K love on the way to work or whatever What what get what gives why didn't you do what you do

We can't treat God like he's transactional. God is relational We don't treat anyone that we love that way and we would not love

God if he acted that way When we don't love vending machines, we find them useful.

We don't find them beautiful It's in the dynamic relationship with God that we find him beautiful Not just useful

Remember that God's grace in your life is always grace Have an expanded view also what grace is the trial you're going through is grace

The pain you've went through is grace that joy you went through is grace that marriage that you have

That's a blessing to you is grace that marriage that you have that you're frustrated with is a grace Everything you have from the

Lord is a gift from a God who loves you That's the third thing

Number four, we need to remember our reasoning is faulty When we're thinking about God's presence

Our perspective on experiencing God is finite and lacking we fail to account for all of the ways that God can use our pain to bless us

You hear this in Job's sort of bombastic appeal in chapter 13 verse 1 He says nevertheless,

I will argue my ways before God Job doesn't say that in chapter 42 Listen carefully to my speech.

He's talking to the Lord. Let my declaration fill your ears behold now I Have prepared my case and I know that I will be vindicated who is going to contend with me

How many are my iniquities and sin God make known to me my rebellion and my sin

Why then do you hide your face and you consider me your enemy Job has faulty reasoning here

Job is saying the only reason God that you would pull back for me is unrighteousness and you said I was right

You already said I was righteous. So therefore God, what are you doing? Job wrongly assumes that that sin and Active rebellion against God is the only thing that will cause distance with God and he failed to account for the other reasons that God might have

God has countless reasons for the reasons or the ways that he does things and We don't need all of the answers in order to receive that and accept that there are times

You're gonna walk through pain where you don't know why you're walking through pain There's times that people in your life are gonna hurt you and break you and Disappoint you and abandon you and lie about you and cheat on you and there's times where people are going to do all manner of Evil against you and you're not gonna know why

You're gonna work and work and work to try to make the situation better and the more you do it's gonna feel like you're digging a

Hole that just goes deeper. You're not gonna understand why You don't have to understand why as a

Christian You don't have to have all the answers as a Christian if God hasn't revealed it to you then you're not responsible for it

What you're responsible for is what he has revealed to you. He's revealed to you that he's good He's revealed to you that he loves you.

He's revealed to you that every situation is for your good whether you can see it or not receive that in faith

You don't have to have every mystery to find that's number four Our reasoning is flawed we need to remember like the psalmist says

Psalm 42 verse 5 he talks to himself Which is not a bad thing

You normally when you see people talking to themselves bad thing here. It's a good thing Why are you in despair?

Oh my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me hope in God? For I shall again praise him for the help of his presence

We'll talk about this passage a little bit more in a moment Just remember our reasoning on why we suffer our reasoning on why we hurt our reasoning on why

God sometimes feels distance is flawed God is in control and he's perfect Number five we need to consider our ruin or our pain or our problems

There there's no moment in Scripture where people cry out to God God help me Then when they're suffering and that's true for us when things are going well

And we're walking with a swagger and we're like I did this like Nebuchadnezzar We don't cry out to God like we do when we're in pain our problems and our pain our experiences focus us to beg

God to relieve our circumstances and God does do that and God does bring aid and comfort but sometimes

God allows us to walk a little bit longer in A situation than we're comfortable for we have a joke about that.

God's timing is not my timing We say that and we smile because we're encouraging ourselves

That God is going to do something but my timings not the same as his we live in a microwave culture a 5g

Generation and we think that everything should be given to us instantly When you're living righteously to the best of your ability, you're not perfect.

I get that but when you're doing the same things that you've always done When you see that other people are getting experiences with God, they're feeling close to God they look like they're walking with God in a joyful way when your power of reasoning is not working and You feel like that God maybe owes you his presence.

I Want you to remember that sometimes God will surprise you By pulling back from you and allowing you to walk in something for your good

He's not obligated to give us what we want when I was a kid, oh, this is a terrible story

What a way to begin When I was a kid, my grandma loved me in great ways and also in unhealthy ways

Her son Left home as soon as he turned 18. I feel like that hurt her so my grandma

Loved me so much that it was unhealthy at times because I think she was trying to make up for Some of the things that had happened with her son my uncle now

When we would go to Walmart and in Mocksville, North Carolina Walmart is a big deal

I've since learned moving to New England that Target is much better and Maybe maybe people don't feel that way.

I've heard it a lot But in Mocksville, North Carolina, our little Walmart was a big deal and Anything I told my grandma that I wanted she bought it.

I didn't realize where money came from When I was 20 something years old, my grandpa told me after my grandma passed away that he would never pay off the credit card debt

Because she had like $30 ,000 in credit card debt from just spending money not just on me, but there was a lot of little me

And it didn't help me When I went into the army at 18 years old,

I Wasn't prepared because I'd been given all everything that I wanted I had to go through years of Not getting what

I want in order to shape my character because I was an impetuous child who just got what they wanted

Getting what we want every time is not good for us Sometimes God's distance is the very best thing for us like a wise parent

If you give your child everything that you want you'll end up with a monster or a gremlin but not a great child pain shapes us

Hardship causes us to grow. It's in manure that things grow best

There's a lesson there When people are in pain, we cry out to God Psalm 10

Why do you stand far off O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? He's crying. He's saying God Why are you not with me?

I have an expectation that you should be Psalm 13 1 how long the

Lord will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me

This passage is not saying that God is forgetful This passage is saying that the psalmist experience

Say so far from God He just wants God to To relieve that he wants to feel

God's nearness again It's expressed in Psalm 42 verse 1 through 3 as the deer pants for water.

I always read that It's like a really nice thing a cute thing like a scene in Bambi sweet little deer

Just pants in a way like, you know, it loves to see me He says like a deer pants for water so my soul pants for you

Oh God my thirst my soul thirst for God for the Living God When shall I come and up here before God?

When can I be in your presence? My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long

Where is your God the picture that he's painting is is a deer ready to die? Thirsting to the point that its tongue is sticking to the roof of its mouth

It's panting and saying I need just a drop of water. I Need just a moment of relief

He's talking about a deer that's gone a long time without water and he what he's saying is Lord It's been a long time since I felt you

It's been a long time since I've Since I felt like you were near to me. It's been a long time since I've seen an answer prayer

It's been a long time since I have experienced nearness and intimacy with you God. I'm dying here.

That's what he's saying Relieve me. We're that panting deer, too

People are like oranges you don't really know what's in us until we get squeezed We've got that veneer of Yeah, I've got everything under control

Go through pain and you'll see the ugliness. You'll see the sin. You'll see the idolatry What a grace that God squeezes us sometimes and shows us what's in us so that we can repent

So that we can trust him and turn to him There are times in Scripture where it says

Seek the Lord knock and the door will be opened. Do you know that that verb? That verb is an interesting one when it says knock and the door will be open we think okay, maybe two maybe three

That verb in Greek is continuous aspect which is nerdy word to say ongoing

What it should be translated as and the English translators don't like gerunds, but nonetheless

Knock and knock and knock keep knocking and the door will be open to you It does not mean if I knock a few times that God's gonna open it right away

Seek me and seek me and seek me and seek me and you'll find me knock and knock and knock and knock and then the door Will be open sometimes

God opens the door right away. We pray for something and then boom it happens One time

I prayed that God would give me a really nice Bible and like the same week. I got one. I'll say this is amazing sometimes

I've prayed and Relief doesn't come right away. And then I pray more and it doesn't come right away months sometimes years you will pray for something and It won't come right away.

There are moments. I've heard stories of people who prayed for something for 50 years they died and Then they left a journal and the guy and the

God answered that prayer after their death and their kids Weep over the fact that their faithfulness and prayer got honored after they died.

They didn't get to see it We can't Have an expectation like microwave generation that I'm hurting right now.

I get relief right now Sometimes God doesn't do that Because it wouldn't be for our good and God always does things for our good and for his glory

Number six. This is the last one the last one of the first set Although the second set is shorter.

I do promise you that How do we think about it our resilience?

Our resilience is not infallible We have a breaking point All of us have the propensity to reach the end of our rope the psalmist does in Psalm 88 1 through 3.

Oh Lord the God of my salvation. He starts out really well nice and theological. I Have cried out by day and in the night before you let my prayer come to you

Incline your ear to my cry for my soul has had enough For my soul has had enough troubles and my life has drawn me near to shield

He's saying God I have reached the end of my rope now. It's time for you to do your thing I've had it

All of us have a breaking point, right? All of us have a moment where we've reached the end of our rope and we're ready to tap out and in that moment

When we've defined it, this is the end of my rope God How many times is it that God is like yeah, but it's not the end of mine

We see this all over the place in sports where someone's body just can't go forward anymore

We see it with mental health someone who is perfectly healthy Person who's gone through like three or four tragedies in a row now has panic attacks.

We reach the end of our rope We have a rope and it has an end and yet what we see in Scripture is that God sometimes

Oftentimes takes us past our rope past where we think we can go a a

Scripture that's often misquoted as 1st Corinthians 1013. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able

He doesn't say he's gonna not ever give you more than you can handle He says when you are being tempted,

I will help you This idea that God will never give you more than you can handle is not biblical

There's so many times where God gives us things that are more than we can handle being a pastor. I'll speak for myself

There's a lot of times. I have things that are more than I can handle I'm not sufficient for this work.

You're not sufficient for yours This idea that God is not going to give us more than we can handle

It's just not biblical and it will set you up for bitterness When you go through seasons where there are more than you can handle.

I Actually think that it's a grace that God gives us more than we can handle Because when we can handle things we get cocky and we get prideful and we get arrogant when

God gives us things that are more Than we can handle. He reminds us who we are so that we will seek out who he is

If we had a stress card That we could pull up and when I when I got out of the military

I remember Somebody saying that the army was floating this idea of a stress card whenever the drill sergeant came around you could pull it

I don't know if they've done that or not. I laughed really hard at that idea But if we had a stress card

We would be the laziest weakest and most spineless people that have ever existed

Because let me ask you this who would willingly go through pain Who would willingly say?

Yeah, I want that. I want to walk through that wilderness. Yeah Yeah, it's me mentally unstable to think a thing like that And yet think about the kind of people we'd be if we never went through pain

Think about the kind of people we would be if we never walked through hardship God graciously graciously allows you to walk through these things because he loves you.

That's the way you've got to think Not poor pitiful me not

I deserve something better. No, you don't God is giving me this because he loves me and that's not just self -help positive thinking that is truth

God is giving you your situation right now because he loves you walk through it with hope 2nd

Corinthians 4 17 says this light momentary affliction is not Meaningless it is preparing you for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison

God is giving you these things to shape you to mold you to build you into the kind of people who will live without stumbling with him forever

Embrace what you're walking through have hope and what you're walking through Remember that God is good and what you're walking through that's how we need to think about it those six things

God's sovereignty our lack of righteousness even Our reasoning is flawed.

Our record is not reliable. Our pain and our suffering is not reliable to help us understand this our rope

Sometimes God will take us beyond it. We need to remember that God is good and all these things. That's what we need to remember

Now the next thing that we're gonna cover is seven things That we can do when we're in that season when we're going through pain when we're going through suffering

We're when we feel like God is a million miles away What are some things that you can do as a Christian because God doesn't tell us to do nothing

To just sit there with a smile on our face There's things that we can do number one

We need to repent of our repentance We need to repent of our repentance we are finite failed flawed people and therefore we have never repented in a way that was befitting of God's honor and consistent with our sin nature

We have always every time we've ever repented. It's been too shallow too superficial and it's not gone deep enough

There are things down in the meat of your soul that you have not even touched

Like Job we may say I don't have anything else to repent repent of Well, maybe like David in Psalm 139 as we sang earlier maybe say to the

Lord search me Oh God know my heart try me and know my anxious ways and See if there's any hurtful thing sinful thing in me and lead me in the everlasting way

David is not saying God search me because there's nothing you're gonna find He's saying God search me because I can't find anything else and I need your help

Shine the spotlight on me bring out the spiritual x -ray on me show me the cancer so that I can repent

We need to repent of our repentance because it has not gone deep enough. Maybe you're experiencing

Deadness in your faith right now dryness in your soul right now because your repentance has been superficial and not gone deep enough perhaps

Number two Remain steadfast in the Lord Don't give up Look at what the book of Lamentations says it says in verse chapter 3 verse 25 and 26 and also in 31 and 32

The Lord is good to those who wait To the person who seeks him and keeps on seeking him it is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the Lord for the Lord will not cast you off forever But though he causes grief he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love

He's saying don't trust in your feelings Have hope hope is not your interpretation of reality

Hope sometimes goes against what you see going on around you hope and wait with patience because your experience

Will improve even if it doesn't improve until the moment you meet

Christ in heaven. It will improve Psalm 27 14 challenges us wait for the

Lord be strong. Let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord When you're going through hardship and pain

Don't become frustrated or impatient wait patiently for the Lord Because God is using those moments in your life to shape you and cultivate you

Number three remind yourself of who God is. Did you know in the Bible that God loves to be reminded about who he is?

We don't like that Would my wife or when your wife or when your husband remind you of who you are?

It's often a frustrating experience. I Can't believe you always do this or you never do they're reminding you of who you are

The reason you don't like it is because you don't like who you are The reason God loves to be reminded of who he is is because he loves who he is

He is delighted in who he is. He celebrates and sings who he is

There's nothing he loves more than who he is. He loves you because he loves who he is

So the scriptures remind God of who he is He loves hearing that listen in Psalm 44 26

Rise up God be our help and redeem us for the sake of your loving -kindness God is not looking at Dave and saying how dare you use my loving -kindness against me.

He's looking at David. This is me Anthropomorphizing for a second, but I I think

God is like I am I am loving and kind Psalm 89 33 to 34 says

God speaking to us. I will not break my loving -kindness from him That's David nor deal falsely in my faithfulness my covenant.

I will not violate nor will I alter the utterance of my Lips remind God of who he is and as you remind

God of who he is it will actually sweeten your heart as You do that number four remember who you are

Remember who you are don't just remember who God is remember you are you're Finite you see dimly you're looking at things through a stained -glass window at best

You cannot understand the depths of God and there are situations that you're gonna walk through where it's gonna tempt you to be bitter but I want to give you an example of how to think about this if I hacked into your bank account today and I took a thousand dollars from you.

You'd be angry You'd be very mad at me But what if I took that thousand dollars and a week later

I deposited ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million I Took from you in order to give to you

Sometimes God takes things that we are clenching our hands around in Order to give more to us.

We just don't see it When you go through stuff that hurts and pain

You've got to remember that God is using this for your good that he is using this to bless you and he's using this to Remind you of who he is so that he can shape you into his image

Remember doubt yourself as you hope in God because you and I are the problem

Number five you have to reign over yourself. I love this if you've never heard of the book by Martin Lloyd -jones

I'll give a shameless plug right now a great book. It's called spiritual depression It's based off of Psalm 42 verse 5

Excellent excellent book and he deals with this idea of do not let yourself speak to you.

You're the problem Don't let yourself speak to you because that chatterbox that's inside of you is the greatest liar that you know

All the the babbling of you're not worthy. You're not acceptable. You're not this You're not that and the shame that you heap upon yourself that nobody else hears that is you speaking to yourself?

Shut that down Stop letting yourself speak to you and you start speaking to yourself and command yourself like David does in Psalm 42 5 why are you in despair all my soul?

He's saying stop talking to me Why have you become disquieted within me now?

Look what he does. He commands his soul hope in God For I shall again praise him for the help of his presence his help of his presence is coming

Stop listening to yourself start telling yourself to hope in God and the number six rest in his plans

Because even if you walk through the most painful things on this earth your future is this revelation 21 3 through 4

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them perfect presence perfect experience forever and They shall be his people and God himself will be their

God and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no Longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain.

The first things have passed away your future is that? Remember that Remember that these light and momentary afflictions aren't even worth comparing to the glory that's gonna be revealed in the day of Christ and Then lastly told you the last set would go faster rejoice always

The man who said rejoice always is the man who was shipwrecked multiple times beaten and left for dead snake bitten beaten with rods put in prison starved stoned a couple times the man that said that experienced more pain in his one lifetime than most of us will experience in ten or a hundred lifetimes and what he said at the end of the matter is rejoice and Even says again,

I will say rejoice You might be going through something right now, that's really hard and if you're not it's coming

We're not gonna have any delusions that we're gonna walk on cloud nine forever You're either in pain right now, or you're going to be in pain soon

Rejoice again, I will say rejoice. Let's pray Lord Because we know who you are we can rejoice

Lord because we know that you are sovereign over all things that you're good in all things that you love us and all things that You're wise and all things that you're perfect and just and gracious and all things that all the things we walk through are

Are no longer opportunities for bitterness There are no longer opportunities for grumbling

There are no longer opportunities for despair, but opportunities for joy Opportunities for rejoicing

Lord would you help us of all the Scriptures in the

Bible that we could Try to think through rejoicing and suffering is likely the hardest for our soul

We are innately predisposed in our flesh to complain to whimper and to whine and yet Your beloved servant

Paul tells us that it's possible that if we think about these things correctly We may not know why they're happening, but we can know

What to do when they are happening and that's to rejoice It's the same man who later said

I have learned the secret of how to be content in all things Because he knows

God Lord help us to know you like that Help us to trust you help us to remember that you're in control and Lord help us to rejoice

No matter our circumstance Lord. Let it not be so that we rejoice more when we're happy Than we are when we're sad

Lord help those two To come together and help us to rejoice in all things in Jesus name.