What to Do When Your Spirits Sink

0:00 We've been talking a lot this weekend about the enjoyment of Jesus or enjoying Jesus, and I made the case on Friday that becoming a Christian or being born again or coming to saving faith is the awakening of the enjoyment of Jesus. and I pointed out that that is an unsettling fact for many because if you make them so closely related as to be necessarily in each other, if you're saved, you enjoy Jesus. To believe is to enjoy Jesus. it makes our faith feel fragile because our joy goes so up and down.

0:56 so are you sure you want to do that Piper make them so closely connected doesn't that tend to undermine people's assurance and so let me head off at the pass a misunderstanding namely that Christian salvation is fragile it's not it's anything but fragile. Those whom he predestined, he called. And those whom he called, he justified. And those whom he justified, he glorified. That's as solid as it can get. From eternity to eternity, sure. an unbreakable chain from predestination to glorification and all the pieces in between of calling and justification and everything else that belongs to salvation is secure.

2:03 If you're predestined, if you're called, if you're justified, you're going to make it. So I have no wobbly view of Christian salvation. I don't think it can be lost. And therefore, when I make it integral to enjoying Jesus, I don't treat it as wobbly or uncertain. You don't solve the problem of the ups and downs of enjoying Jesus as if faith didn't have its ups and downs. It's like, oh, joy is an emotion and therefore fragile. Faith is something that doesn't go up and down.

2:59 That's not true. Jesus referred to little faith, big, oh, your faith is great. Paul spoke of growing faith. So faith is not something that also doesn't go up and down in our lives. so if the ups and downs of joy in our life feel threatening then so will the ups and downs of faith that's not the way to solve the problem so we're going to talk about the ups and downs especially the down of enjoying Jesus that's where we're going this morning I don't know what group I asked I can't remember, but I love to ask groups.

3:54 I'll ask you, what makes you think that you will wake up a believer tomorrow morning? What makes you think that you'll wake up and be a Christian in the morning? And there's a wrong answer to that question. And the wrong answer would be something like, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I will use my free will to believe in Jesus tomorrow morning. Well, you know no such thing. Here's what you know. Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with rejoicing. To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory and authority and majesty and dominion forever. That's what you know.

4:47 If you're a believer, he keeps his own. Those he calls, he keeps. I will wake up a believer tomorrow morning because God has kept me or I won't be a believer tomorrow morning. We trust in God, not ourselves. So the security that we enjoy, the assurance that we have that the ups and downs of our joy and the ups and downs of our faith don't destroy us. They won't. God has patterns built into the Bible to help us manage the downs. It's not hard to manage the ups. And that's what we're talking about this morning. There is a fight for faith. And the fight for faith is a fight for joy. if I was right on Friday night that to have saving faith in Jesus is to be awakened to the enjoyment of Jesus.

5:49 So when Paul speaks to Timothy and says, fight the good fight of faith, it's the same as saying fight for joy. I wrote a book called When I Don't Desire God and the subtitle is How to Fight for Joy. I'm old and Paul was old he called himself an old man one time in the book of Philemon and he was in prison great place to end your life by the way it goes quicker that way probably In case you're wondering what to do with your last 20 years. He was in prison and he wrote the last book of the New Testament that he wrote, 2 Timothy, and he said, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course.

6:42 I have kept the faith, which I take to mean old men fight to the end and they better not stop. If you think that you can fight for 60 or 80 years and then stop for a year or two, You're crazy. The devil does not sleep. And his fiery darts shoot at old people and young people. We fight to the end, and God has taught us how to do it, and that's what we're talking about. How to fight your way through the slump when you wake up and there's almost no joy in Jesus. so if you have a bible which I hope you do at least on your phone let's go to oh you just turned your phones off how do you do that got print bibles around here that's good let's go to go to the bible however you've got it psalm 40 And we're going to read verses 1 to 3, which are a pattern of how David managed his loss of spiritual dynamic joy.

8:08 What did he do? And I think as Christians on this side of the cross, we can embrace these verses as our own. Paul said in Galatians 4, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law in order that they might be adopted as sons. so we know God today as our father in a unique and special way unknown in the same detail in the old testament they didn't know how this was going to work they didn't know that blood was going to be shed by the incarnate God as the messiah who would cover all the sins, Old and New Testament, and who would bring the saints into a sweet, intimate, child-adopted relationship with the Father, so that when we call upon God, like this text does, we're calling now upon God as a Father that we have because of adoption through the blood of Jesus.

9:30 So I'm reading this text because I read my whole Bible. I understand it as a completed whole, the Old Testament preparing and the New Testament fulfilling. And I think you then did stand back and see all the promises of God bought by Jesus Christ. And you can make the Old Testament your book. And so I'm reading this as my Christian book here, these three verses in Psalm 40. I think Jesus bought this text for you. If you are in him, it's yours. To the choir master, a psalm of David.

10:13 I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. and put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God, many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Now, I think that's a pattern of life that we live, I'm tempted to say, every day, at least regularly. so I'm asking is it normal to have Christian seasons in the pit with the king and what do you do when you go there that's what this message is about and that's what this text I think answers I see six stages if I were teaching a class instead of preaching a sermon I would have you find the stages first David is in a muddy pit verse 2 calls it a pit of destruction miry bog in the ESV second he cries out to God from this pit for help verse 1 he heard my cry 3 he waits how long I don't know how long I'm glad he didn't tell me how long he waits for the Lord verse 1 I waited patiently for the Lord Four, God draws him up out of the pit into safety.

11:59 Verse two, he drew me up out of the pit. Five, God gives David a new song to sing, probably the one we're reading, Psalm 40. Verse three, he put a new song in my mouth. And finally, verse, or step six, many see, many others see what happened to David. and they fear, and they put their trust in the Lord. Verse 3, many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. So I'll give them names, and then we'll take them one at a time and walk you through them, because this is where we, I want you to simply take away from this message, okay, that's what I'll do. That's what I'll do. When my spirits are low and when my joy seems to vanish, this is what I'm going to do. So I want you to just get a real clear sense of what these six stages are. The king's pit, the king's cry, the king's patience, the king's rescue, the king's song, and the king's influence. And I think you can just put your name on it If you're a Christian, you just put your name on it and say that was the saint's experience in the Old Testament.

13:22 I'm in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. That can be my experience today. So let's take them one at a time. First, he's in the pits. What was that? What is that? That's a little pit. Is that a picture of something? In ESV, it's the pit of destruction. In the King James, it's horrible pit. In the RSV, it's a desolate pit. In the NIV, it's a slimy pit. You look up the word and get the most root definition. It has to do with roaring and a tumult, which is a very odd picture for a pit. You don't think of, I'm in a pit and there's a storm in the pit. That's odd. These are not photographs, right? These are word pictures chosen to help us feel the soul condition that he was in. And then you've got mud, mire.

14:20 And they don't seem to go together. This roaring pit, like a well, like 30, 40 feet down. And you're down there, and there's a storm down there, and there's mud down there. this mire it reminded me of because I'm reading I suppose through Jeremiah right now in my devotions what happened to Jeremiah when Zedekiah got so ticked at this prophet here's what it says in Jeremiah 38 6 so they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malkia the king's son which was in the court of the guard letting Jeremiah down with ropes that was nice at least. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mire. And Jeremiah sank in the mire. That's scary. Quicksand is scary. I don't like movies that have quicksand. They're horrible.

15:22 They give me nightmares. They can't stand the thought of sinking in quicksand. And that seems to be something of the picture here. It's helplessness, it's desperation, air starts to become precious to you. Am I ever going to get out of here? That's a description of the emotion of your life at times. Maybe today. Eventually it will be. helpless desperate maybe hopeless because you can't feel anything anymore a breaking point for an overworked businessman exasperation to the limit of a mom with three kids that are all crying and they're little and she's just at her wits end too many classes for a student. I can't do this, Dad. I just can't do this college thing. A powerful enemy coming against you. Some grinding stress of a long illness. I mean, pick your desperation. Life is hard and God is good. We like to sing that, don't we?

16:32 So that's the pit. We don't know what it was for David, and I'm glad we don't know, because I think that invites you in to say, yours too. the king's pit, and then the king's cry, number two, verse one. I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. I think one of the reasons God calls David a man after his own heart, why he has such an affection for David is because he cried so much. He cried out so much. Here's Psalm 6. I am weary with my mourning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with my weeping.

17:29 That's the man after God's own heart. Psalm 56. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? and of course Jesus, blessed are those who mourn. It is a beautiful thing when a broken man genuinely cries out to God. It is not a beautiful thing when a macho jock tries to make his way to shore after getting a cramp, hiding the fact that he's about to die and he's not going to let anybody know about it. That's not beautiful. He thinks it's beautiful. It's not beautiful. Not to God.

18:18 I remember when I was in Daytona Beach on vacation with my parents. It's a little six-year-old or so. And you wait out just a little too far and you know how the current works. It can just, and then a little kid just totally not ready for the power of the undertow. Sweeps me off my feet and my first words are, Daddy!

18:40 That's what God wants to hear. That's what God wants to hear. None of this fake, I don't need any help. That's ridiculous. You better own the need for help. Women and men and little children and teenagers, we need help. And so he cries out, and God is very pleased with the cry of his people. blessed is the man this is verse four the next verse blessed is the man who has made the lord his trust and who has not turned to the proud in other words when you cry out be sure to cry out to god there's a lot of people who are willing to recognize the need for help and they don't ask god they ask other people God he's kind of maybe a last resort not a first resort that's backwards that's just backwards God should be our first resort do you remember Asa the king oh man every time I read the stories of these kings I shake my head and say oh my goodness won't they ever learn and of course won't Piper ever learn to trust the Lord and not be anxious.

20:10 But Asa relied upon Syria instead of the Lord, and God spanked him for it, didn't kill him. He spanked him and disciplined him. And then you think, okay, he's got it. And at the end of his life, this is 2 Chronicles 16, 12. In the 39th year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. And even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but he sought help from physicians.

20:50 Now, I thank God for physicians. This is not anti-physician. This is anti-making physicians your God. this is anti-defaulting to physicians, and oh yes, later God. That's what this text is against. When David was in the pit, he cried out to the Lord.

21:18 And the Lord uses all kinds of means, and medicine is a great gift of common grace that we should all be very, very thankful for. It is better to take, this is Psalm 118, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. So when you're in the pit, you cry out to God. Now he may use a therapist, a Christian counselor, may use a pastor, may use the Bible. He has a hundred ways to meet you and rescue you, but you call out to him. That's number two. The king's pit, the king's cry, and now thirdly, the king's patient waiting, the king's patience.

22:17 Verse one, I waited patiently for the Lord. the reason that's so important for us to hear is because waiting I think Marshall's breakout yesterday was on waiting waiting is a huge portion of the Christian life we could wish that answers came as soon as the request was made and they don't they don't come that way usually God's timing is rarely your timing I was a pastor for 33 years and we were always desperate for something something wasn't working come to the end of the year you need a third of your budget in December very typical like oh my goodness four weeks left, need a million dollars and God cancels your first service with a snowstorm like Gideon You got too many Sundays to get a million dollars.

23:24 Going to take one of them away. Nobody's showing up today. That's just the way it worked over and over again. And he came through. He came through. My God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. If you don't get it, you don't need it. That's why I told the elders, if we don't get it, we don't need it. That's what it says in the Bible. he will supply every need and our timing is seldom his. He knows the time for joy and truly will send it when he sees it meet. When he has tried and purged thee duly and finds thee free from all deceit, he comes to thee all unaware and makes thee own his loving care.

24:19 I love that song. It's called, If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee. I learned it in Germany, in German. And now it's got seven verses and that one right there. The timing of God is simply sovereignly wise and seldom your timing. God knows what he's doing. We wait. Waiting is a huge part of the Christian life.

24:45 Evildoers will be cut off. This is Psalm 37. but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. A great part of waiting is meekness and humility because a verse, two verses later, it says, the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundance. So the waiters, those who wait will inherit the land, and then it says the humble will inherit the land. to wait you've got to be humble so you're sitting in a doctor's office, and he had an emergency, and he's not there, and the appointments are backing up, and this room is full of upset people.

25:43 Now, who are the people who are making themselves a perfect pain in the rear for these poor receptionists? Proud people. Not humble people. People who presume upon their rights. The humble people understand reality. Nobody's planned anything against you here. Somebody's died somewhere. Cool it. to wait as we ought to wait requires humility it also requires hope psalm 39 and now lord what do i wait for my hope is in you or psalm 130 i wait for the lord my soul waits and in his word do I hope. Waiting is not listlessness. That's not the posture.

26:45 As a deer plants, as a deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God. There's a leaning in to when will he arrive, and what will he do, and how will he bring me out of this? He's coming. I know he's coming. He's going to come at the right time. He's going to bring the right deliverance, and I'm waiting humbly because I don't deserve anything better than this, and I'm waiting hopefully because he's a good father. That's the posture of waiting. The king's pit, the king's cry, the king's patience, and now the king's rescue. Verse two, he drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry bog and set my feet upon a rock making my steps secure.

27:39 There's a world of difference between quicksand and rock. It's a beautiful picture. He drew me up out of this slime into which I was sinking and sinking and sinking and he picks me up and puts me on a rock. Solid. We weren't, as Christians, we weren't saying God's not real. We were just admitting my emotions are not fully in sync with the realities I know exist. I feel like I'm sinking. That's reality. and he comes, and you were secure in his hand all along, and now he makes you feel it, right? What a difference to be sinking and then to be standing on a rock. That's what changes. He ministers to your soul so deeply that you feel like you're on a rock. And I don't know what the rescue was from. Could have been disease. Maybe he was very sick and about to die. Psalm 30, oh Lord my God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me.

28:55 That's sickness. That's one way of rescue. Or it may have been from enemies. Psalm 69, save me, O God, more in number than the hairs of my head are those who want to destroy me. Or it might have been guilt. Very aware of that psalm, right? So 51, be gracious to me, O God, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. So I'm glad, again, it doesn't say not only how long he waited, it doesn't say what he got rescued from. God is so merciful. He will rescue you from anything, anything, if you will call to him like a little child and trust him to come. So, the king's pit, the king's cry, the king's patience, the king's rescue and now the king's song.

29:57 Verse 3. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. What does singing signify? If your heart is singing and your mouth is singing, you have felt something is very precious. You are so thankful for something that words are not quite adequate. They have to be sung. A poem has to be written. A song has to be sung because my heart has been made so glad ordinary language is not adequate anymore. That's what singing says. Something is so good, so precious. all of us gravitate towards dullness no songs most people don't sing through the day it's an unusual person johnny erickson tada i said saturday night that she's one of my heroes and that's what marks her life in her paralysis she sings anytime i'm with her she starts a song you know this song john Thank you.

31:13 She knows every hymn there exists, it seems like, from memory. Because she's a thankful person. She has cultivated a deeply, deeply thankful heart. She knows the pits. You can't be paralyzed from age 17 to 76. Her birthday was the day before yesterday. You can't be paralyzed for that long and not have pits. But oh, how she has grown to be thankful and therefore sing. So if you were God and you looked down and you saw your people songless and their hearts were not ecstatic over the relationship that you have given them forever, what would you do? well one of the things he does is to put you in the pit and strip from you many blessings for a season so that when you come up you sing that's what it says he put a new song in my mouth why did he sing a new song?

32:30 because he was in the pit that's how it works so I'm 14 years old I love to swim I love to swim underwater not on top of water there was a pool in our neighborhood that was 40 feet long and 20 feet wide and I love to see how many laps I could do underwater one, two, three, four I love to just, you know, stay underwater as long as I could thought that was cool At the deep end, it's nine feet deep, and there's a grate at the bottom that covers the drainage. And my job was to clean a grate.

33:18 And one day, my finger got stuck in the grate. and air became very precious. You got 30 seconds. You can chew your finger off, maybe, or you can drown, or you can cry out to the Lord, which I did. I didn't wait patiently. Skip that step. And he let me loose and set my feet up on a concrete deck. and I loved air. If you had asked me an hour earlier, you love air? You singing songs to air? I'd look at you funny.

34:12 Now I'm singing songs to air? That's what he does. If you got a better way for him to do it, then you can counsel him about that. But the Bible says nobody has counseled the Lord, so skip that step and just admit that he's wise and he loves you. He wants you to love him like I loved air, precious air, sweet air, inestimable air. Give a million dollars for every breath of air. That's how important and precious God is. and if he has to lay us low in order to bring us up to give us a new song, he'll do it. He wants you to sing a new song. And so if you loved him that way, if your enjoyment of Jesus were that constant, then you might not have to endure as many down seasons.

35:09 So that's number five. Maybe before I turn to number six, I see a reminder here. I wrote down yesterday. A new song. It says put a new song in my mouth. Or maybe an old song sung in a new way. But I do think it would be good to say to you as a church, go ahead and sing a new song. Clearly you do. I don't know any of these songs that you sing. I mean, I recognize them sort of. They're all made new, right? That's got a biblical, there's a biblical warrant for that. If you wonder, why do they do that here? Sing a new song to the Lord. So old songs become new, new songs are new. An old song, the reason I pause here on music is because I think it's true that most rich, deep, beautiful songs historically have come out of the pit.

36:19 You walk through a pit, you come up out, and a new song is given to you. And you write it down, and they sing it for 500 years. So the old song says, when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. the new song says blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful where the streams of abundance flow blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place though I walk through the wilderness billows, desert, pit that's where songs come from if you'd ever walk through any pit you probably will sing light songs and we'll never have the feel of blood, pain, suffering, sustaining faithful grace from God.

37:21 But you walk through pits and then you come out and he puts a new song in your mouth. That song is going to have a flavor that makes it go deep with people and last for a long time. Number six, the king's influence. This is so remarkable. We end with this. and the surprising thing and I suppose it's what made me love this unit. I preached on this one other time, 1980. I was a brand new pastor, 34. We were doing summer psalms we called them and I did this. I called it In the Pits with the King back in those days.

37:58 I love this song, this unit, because it ends on evangelism. Many will see and fear. This is verse 3. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. you just want to laugh, don't you? Like, oh, the whole thing was about evangelism.

38:25 You want to win people to Jesus? Get in a pit. I mean, let him put you in a pit and don't get angry at him. Many will see and fear. Now, what do they see? And what do they fear? And then trust. That's an interesting way to say it, right? They see, they fear, they trust. Hmm. Well, what they see is a Christian who in humility and patience endures a hard thing. Pick your hard thing, a very hard thing. They're watching you, and you endure it. You wait patiently. You are humble, and you are trusting, and you're calling out to God for help and for deliverance. And after a season, God comes through for you and reestablishes your hope and your strength and maybe even puts your feet upon a healed rock, a delivered rock.

39:30 So they're watching this, and they see your unusual, counterintuitive, enduring of hardship as you trust and call out to God. and then they see God's faithfulness and he comes through and then they think, well, if that's real, I'm in trouble.

39:56 That's the fear. If that's real, if that kind of faith is real and that kind of God is real, then I don't have it and I'm afraid. and then God gives them what they need and they trust in the Lord. It's a beautiful thing to believe and that certainly is the case. I mean, every suffering person I know who has responded like this is a strengthening to my faith. I've got my heroes. Heroism to me is enduring much hardship for great causes.

40:40 So anybody can be a hero if they endure hardship for a great purpose in reliance upon the Lord. So it strengthens new believers by bringing them and it strengthens old believers. So what a surprise. the whole story turns out to be a story of personal evangelism. So how shall we win others to Christ? I'll end with this. When you are in the pits with the king, which you will be, cry out to the Lord like a helpless child, not a self-sufficient person.

41:23 Then humbly and hopefully wait patiently for the Lord. His timing won't be your timing. It'll be perfect. when he comes in his own time and makes you secure then sing a new song to the lord and sing it out loud and sing it in public and god may be pleased to cause many to see and fear and put their trust in the lord so father i ask that that would be the wonder that we would all experience here at this church, our church, that we would be granted the grace to endure your disciplinary pits, that we would be patient, that we would call upon you, and that you would show up. I pray that you'd show up this morning for people who came in here with their feet sinking in the mire and that they would be given a rock that they would walk out of here stable secure confident that you care and you have come through for them may many many in Midlothian and all this region see