Psalm 142 is our text today. Let's continue meditating on the psalms together. Psalm 142, entitled this sermon, No One Cares for My Soul. And we'll see what that means as we consider this psalm. You'll probably note as we begin looking at Psalm 142 that we have seen many psalms like this psalm. It's not unfamiliar by this time, by this point in the Psalter, as we continue through now 141 previous Psalms, we're getting familiar with some of this terminology, even some of this way of speaking, some of these kinds of Psalms. For that very reason, I think now is a good time to use this Psalm to reflect on some larger lessons that God is teaching us through the Psalms. This psalm, as you note right from the beginning here in its superscription, is called Amaskeel. Amaskeel of David, when he was in the cave, a prayer, the superscription says. Now we've not seen this description on a psalm since Psalm 89. So going back the last two whole books of the psalms, we haven't seen a psalm called this before or entitled in this way. We're not actually certain exactly what this term means in the superscription of the psalms. However, we know it is related to a word which means understanding, or insight, or skill. And so it could be that a maskeel, as it's titling a psalm here, is a work designed to exhibit and to convey then to our hearts insight, understanding, and skill. In other words, there's a kind of a training going on when you sing this psalm. You notice also this psalm is connected to a time when David was in the cave. It says, when he was in the cave. We've seen that once before in Psalm 57. There were two times in scripture recorded for us when David was in a cave. In 1 Samuel 22, David escaped from Saul. In the cave of Adullam, the Bible tells us, where then around 400 men gathered to him, and he began leading them in the wilderness. Two chapters later, in 1 Samuel 24, David hid from Saul's pursuit in a cave in the wilderness of Engedi. Saul came into the cave not knowing that David was there. David actually had an opportunity to kill Saul at that point. But he would not lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed, he says. In either case, whatever cave this was, the psalm arose from a setting in which Saul was out to destroy David. You can see something of that reflected in this psalm as David thinks back on that and writes this psalm arising from that experience. And yet right here is where I want to take this opportunity to point out some things. As we will see, the scripture doesn't want you to focus on the particular historical event, as if what the psalm we're going to read was simply a commentary on David's feelings in that experience. Here's what I mean by that. Sometimes we think about historical writing as, well, here's a description of what happened, the kings, the battles, the various things, from an objective point of view. And then there's sometimes history written from a subjective point of view, We talk about what we felt like going through these very experiences, or what it was like to live through these kinds of experiences. And so what we tend to do in our modern time is we'll read a psalm like this, see it with a superscription like that, and think, oh, this is just telling us, it's kind of giving us a behind-the-scenes look at how David felt about the situation that he was in. I think there are a few problems with that kind of an approach, actually. We won't talk about all of those, but one, one problem with that way of approaching this psalm and others like it is that it's obvious that the psalms don't give us enough information to know exactly what the situation is we're supposed to think about. It just says when he's in the cave. Okay, what about that? Which cave? We don't know. In other words, you don't really need to know. That's not particularly germane to what God is teaching. Now, you need to know it arose from a situation like this, but that's all we know. In fact, most Psalms, the vast majority of them, have no information that places them conclusively in one historical situation or another, because that doesn't lessen their value at all. The point of the psalms isn't to be tied to one particular situation or another. We need to recognize that as we read these psalms because that opens us up then to what they're driving us to. A second problem with the approach we've just talked about is that we tend to find the primary value of the psalm then in identifying feelings we have that are similar to the ones David experienced. And we try to look at the psalms in that way. You know, I look at what David felt like, and I think about my life, and I think, hey, I've experienced that too. And so I find a kind of identification here in what David felt like and what I feel like. Now, first of all, I would say that is, in one sense, fine as far as it goes. There's actually something good about that. There's something very wise about God giving us the Psalms in this way. In other words, the Psalms do help our weak souls to know that our experiences are not unique to us. Do you ever think that? You ever think, nobody understands what I'm going through. Nobody has ever felt like what I'm feeling right now. Well, yeah, we have a tendency to think that as humans, don't we? And one of God's kindnesses to us in giving us the Psalms is to help open up our eyes to the fact that, no, that's actually not the case. God knows what we're going through here. Our experiences are not unique to us. They're not outside of God's knowledge or control. The things that happen to us, to paraphrase a little bit of a New Testament text, are common to man, right? Is that helpful for us to know? Absolutely. Do the Psalms minister to our souls in that way? Certainly. But that's not the end point. That's only a beginning point. We need to recognize the Psalms as you read them, as you enter into them, and maybe even identify with the feelings expressed in them. The Psalms are not merely commiseration. They're not merely saying, I know how you feel. I feel that way too. That's fine, but that doesn't help you, right? Somebody else knowing how you feel, well, that might make you feel a little bit better to know somebody else knows how you feel. but that hasn't changed anything. You're still in that situation. Are the Psalms given to us merely to commiserate with us and say, oh yeah, God's right down here with us, he knows how you feel, or are the Psalms actually given to us to transform our very experience of these things we're going through? To call us beyond this. We've said this many times in our series through the Psalms, that the Psalms are meant to shape our souls to seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness. In other words, the Psalms are calling you to a whole new kind of experience of the very world you're in, a spiritual experience in Christ. In other words, they're not supposed to simply pacify your souls and make you feel better. They are supposed to be a bridge to a higher world, a whole new kind of existence, which by the way, it turns out, is what this world was really meant for and what it's all pointing toward. They are supposed to, or maybe another way of saying this, is that the Psalms are not merely to be tacked on to your interpretation of how you feel about life, your interpretation of your experience in the world, They are meant to reinterpret everything of your experience, everything you experience down to the very depths of your soul, so that you begin to experience yourself and everything else in this whole world in Christ. That's what the Psalms are designed to do. You see, folks, the reality behind all these Psalms that they are opening our lives up into, opening our hearts and our minds and our souls to recognize, which comes to fulfillment, later on, is that Jesus Christ is the rationale for everything. He is the measure by which we can understand everything about ourselves, what it means to be a human, what it means to experience life in this world, what our whole lives are for. What's happening to us? Jesus Christ is the rationale for how we understand everything in our experience in relationship to God. So the Psalms take us from where we are at our time in our little human understanding. And that's, again, the beauty of them. They do meet us where we are. They do connect with things that we really feel. They meet us where we are, but they don't leave us there. They take us beyond that. They lift us up to know Christ. You might say the Psalms are the voice of Christ entering into our human condition. Some of those vary directly and explicitly in things like Messianic Psalms, but all of them implicitly. The voice of Christ. And then because of that, the Psalms are the voice of the body of Christ, the Church. As she is on pilgrimage in this present evil world, the Psalms are the voice of the bride of Christ, responding to the voice of her lover in faith, hope, and love. The Psalms are us speaking with Jesus in his prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what the Psalms are. So let's take that now and let's look with fresh eyes at this psalm, Psalm 142. After having gone through so many psalms, you're going to see this psalm is a classic, almost textbook case, if you will, of a psalm of lament, an individual lament, it's often called. These kinds of psalms have, there's a common pattern, common themes that come out in these kinds of psalms. There is an address to the Lord in verses one and two. There is then a complaint addressed to the Lord, a problem that's set before him is given to the Lord. You see that in verses three and four. This is then followed by a confession of trust in verse five, followed itself then by a petition. Here's the actual request itself in verses six and 7a, the first part of verse seven. And then it concludes with an expectation of deliverance. in the last part of verse 7. A real hope, an expectation, God will deal bountifully with me. I think as we read this then, this psalm gives us insight, understanding, into the workings of faith, hope, and love in a dispirited, deserted, and desolate soul. How does this actually take place? you're gonna see this is the voice of Christ as he humbled himself all the way to the lonely death on the cross. And thus, this psalm is the voice of his body as we know Christ, that is, both the power of his resurrection and the participation in his sufferings. This psalm is not merely meant to give you a technique for how to cope with feeling lonely. That's not what the psalms are about. This psalm is given to transform your loneliness into participation in Christ's sufferings and his triumph, ultimately. Let's read it together here. With my voice, I cry out to the Lord. With my voice, I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before him. I tell my trouble before him. When my spirit faints within or literally upon me, when my spirit faints upon me, you know my way. In the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me. Look to the right and see, there is none who takes notice of me. No refuge remains to me. No one cares for my soul. I cry to you, O Lord. I say, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me." Hear this psalm given to you to transform your lonely suffering into participation in Christ. How does it take our souls through this? How does it work us through faith, hope, and love working out in these situations? Well, verses one and two, it calls upon you to cry out to the Lord. With my voice, I cry out to the Lord. With my voice, I plead for mercy to my God. You see that emphasis right there, with my voice, with my voice, right? I'm crying out to the Lord. with my voice. I'm looking to Him to be merciful to me. I'm expounding on, I'm demonstrating, showing, proving my problem before Him. I'm laying it all out before the Lord. I'm telling Him, revealing to Him my troubles so that they are clear before His face. I'd like to encourage you as you think about what this psalm teaches you to do to enter into Christ's sufferings, not to overlook this part where it says, with my voice, with my voice, I cry, I plead. It's not uncommon when we read psalms like this or even read this kind of a text, I hear people say, you know, you don't have to speak out loud for God to hear you. God knows the very thoughts of your heart. God knows what's going on in the deepest recesses of your soul. And even if you don't say a word, God knows. And you know what? That's very true. That's a wonderful comfort, actually. But it's not by accident that the Psalm says, with my voice, right? In other words, it's not enough just to think the thoughts in my heart or in my head. God gave you a voice, didn't he? God made you a creature with a voice, and that wasn't an accident. Why did he give you a voice? Why did he make you the kind of a creature that speaks in words and language? He did that so you could commune with him. You're not an animal that just grunts and barks and whistles and hoots, right? You're a human being. You're a living soul. You're designed from a creator who speaks to be able to speak back to him. You know what, folks? God wants that. And that is actually good. It's good for us. He made us that way. Why do we, for instance, pray or sing out loud? Why do we gather as God's people and sing out loud? Is that relevant? Of course it is. Why do we read the scriptures out loud together? Is that relevant? Of course it is, right? To not do that is to in fact cut off part of who we were made to be in our relationship with God. I think it's actually a very good exercise for all of God's people to, with your voice, cry out to God. Now, I mean that in your closet sometimes, right? Yes, you can think your prayers to God, and that's good. But I think it's also very good for you to speak your prayers to God. That is good for you. It's not for God's information, we know that, but neither is your thinking for God's information, right? He doesn't need you to think things in order for Him to know them. He knows your thinking, but He's made you to speak to Him. and he's done that for your benefit. He's made you to commune with him, so use it, right? I think this is good for a lonely, dispirited soul to talk to God and to talk out loud. God is there, and you are communing with him, and when you exercise your powers and the kind of creature he has made you to commune with him, you do so, and you do so even better than if you don't exercise your powers. Perhaps it's even as simple as perhaps you've experienced this, right? I find myself having a hard time concentrating in prayer. There's too much pressures, maybe too much anxiety. Talk. Start talking out loud to God, and you'll find out that you are focused a lot more than if you don't talk, right? This isn't an accident, folks. Don't overlook this. Oh, that's just poetic exaggeration or something. When the psalmist says, with my voice I cry out, and with my voice I plead for God. No, he's saying all of me is engaged in crying out to God. And I use every power he has given me, including my voice, to talk to him, to lay out my case before him. And so I do that. I lay out my case, I pour out my complaint, I lay it out before God, I make my case, if you will. This is the problem, God, and I need you to respond. Do you think God does not love to hear that when his saints call to him? That that is not a communication with him? It's good. Cry out to the Lord. Folks, Jesus, as the perfect man, the true revelation of mankind to mankind, both God and man, but perfect man, this is what Jesus did in his hour of greatest need. In the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the cross, when he was all alone, he cried out to God. Right? He didn't just go think nice thoughts with God. He talked to him. This is what you can do as a lonely soul, a dispirited, deserted soul. Cry out to the Lord. And that leads right into the next stanza where we get into the heart of this complaint. What is the complaint? What's the problem here that we're laying before the Lord? Well, we see David expressing on behalf of the body of Christ and us speaking now a dispirited, deserted, and desolate soul. He says in verse three, when my spirit faints upon me, you, he emphasizes this, you know my way, right? This is why I'm gonna talk to you, Lord, because you know. When my soul faints, when it's weak and weary, has no vitality, has no more courage to rouse itself to face what's going on. And I think he mentions a spirit on purpose here, because a spirit is our soul, particularly in its transcendence and its relationship beyond ourselves to God. You might say, even when my very life drawing from God, my life force drawing from God is fading away and bleeding out, I'm calling upon you And let me just emphasize this Because I think it helps to sharpen the image in our mind He says when my spirit faints upon me not within me There's a couple of the Psalms where I brought this up Psalm 42 and some others I I'm not gonna call this a mistranslation, but I think it is an example of our imagination constraining how we translate this text. When we think of a spirit, we think of it being where? Inside. It's inside me. That's where my spirit is. Where's my spirit? It's inside me. But that's not actually what the text says. This terminology never means inside. Never. Any usage, ever. It's upon. It's over. I mean, in other words, this is an engagement with the world around me. I'm not just feeling this inside, so to speak. This is my whole life with God, which is outside my head and outside my body and everywhere around me. My whole life with God now is faint, and I'm feeling the weight of that upon me, and it's bearing me down. My spirit is upon me, and I can't bear up anymore. That's what he's talking about. When I'm in this situation, when my spirit faints upon me, Lord, you know, you know my way. So he's dispirited. But we also see that he is in danger. In the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me. You're thinking with the Psalms, we've just been in Psalm 140, Psalm 141, now Psalm 142. He's bringing up this issue of the trap, right? The trap. The enemies of God, my own enemies, set a trap for me. And that's a constant reality. I'm in danger. He describes in verse four then as being deserted and desolate. Look to the right and see. In other words, This is where, if you picture in a battle, David obviously an experienced soldier here. I think this might have been what he was imagining. He's looking for his right-hand man in the thick of things to defend him, to help him out, right? I'm in hand-to-hand combat here and I need somebody protecting me and I look for him and he's not there, right? I'm all alone now. I'm surrounded by my enemies. Look to the right and see there's none who takes notice of me. A refuge has been taken away from me. I can't find anywhere to find refuge from my enemies. I've been deserted, he says, and then he describes it as desolate. No one cares for my soul. I'm all alone. There is no way to get help. Perhaps again, as the Psalms meet you where you are, you felt those very things, right? I don't know where to turn for help. I can't find anywhere to turn for help. On a human level, it seems like there is nowhere to turn for help. That's the condition that he's talking about here. Sometimes we might ask ourselves or wonder How does one get into that kind of a condition? Well, I think there are many ways we get into that kind of condition, both from within ourselves and from without, whether it's the things we encounter in life or from our very own weaknesses. Sometimes we do it to ourselves. Just yesterday, as I was out driving, I drove by a sign out in front of a business, and it had this message on it. Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that you are an idiot. Okay, that's true, right? Sometimes we get ourselves into positions where we're desolate and alone because we are idiots and we don't see where we're going very well and we've put ourselves right in that position. Granted, But sometimes it's other circumstances. Sometimes you might even get so discouraged that you wonder if you can even really be a Christian. Surely this can't be what a real Christian experiences, right? You know what this is, folks? This is a call for you to be transformed from your sufferings, your alonenesses, your desertions and desolations to be transformed from being about you to being about Christ. This is a call to enter into the sufferings of Jesus Christ as one of his members of his body. You remember that no one, no one in all of history was ever alone like Christ was alone. In some ways I think about that even in his earthly ministry while he's with his disciples. He chose them out from the masses to be with him, to commune with them, to teach them, to train them, to be his witnesses then to the ends of the earth. And yet so often, even while he was in that process of living together with them, did they understand him in the least? Did they get what was going on and what he was trying to do? Do you think Jesus, as a man, felt alone, humanly speaking, like nobody ever understands me. I think he probably felt that more than anybody in all of history has. If anybody could say that truly, nobody understands me. Jesus could say that. And yet it wasn't just the humans around him, both his friends and his enemies. When he went to the cross, he had to cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? when he bore our sin. He had to experience a kind of aloneness, a desertion, a desolation of soul that no other human being can comprehend. No one was ever alone like Christ was alone, and yet he bore that. He did that for you and I, and then he brings us by his spirit into union with himself in his triumphant resurrection, and then we follow in his footsteps. And then we begin to participate in his real life being lived out in us. And you know what happens when we do that? We start to experience his sufferings. The Apostle Paul described this in Colossians chapter one. He said that in his own body, he was filling up the afflictions of Christ. Was Paul worried in a sense, you see a transformed mind at work here with this sufferings and aloneness. Did people misunderstand the Apostle Paul? Did the very people he ministered to turn on him? Did they bad mouth him? He had to write a whole letter to the Corinthians saying, our heart is open to you. Why are you not reciprocating to us? And yet was the Apostle Paul writing to the Colossians then, saying, uh, woe is me. I keep suffering so much. Why does this happen to happen to me? Right? Can't my life in Christ be a little less painful, more joyful? No, he actually had a totally transformed perspective where he said, this is the afflictions of Christ that I am privileged to participate in. Christ has called me. Christ has given me a path to serve him, to be a partner in what he's doing in this world. This is glory. In fact, the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared to the glory that's going to be revealed. Yes, we're groaning right now in this creation. Should we expect anything else? He would later pray that he would know Christ, not only the power of his resurrection, but the sharing in the participation in the koinonia, in his sufferings. Folks, that's what the Psalms are calling you to, to enter into the sufferings of Christ, because apart from Christ, your sufferings actually are meaningless. Apart from Christ, your sufferings just bring death. Apart from Christ, your sufferings are just the first pangs of hell and being separated from God, but being taken up into Christ. Now there's eternal glory starting to work its way out here. This is a different world for this dispirited, deserted, and desolate soul. And so in that very confidence, we see in verse five come out this confession, this cry of confidence. I cry to you, O Lord. I say, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. What do you do when you are dispirited, deserted, and desolate? You recalibrate everything in your life by looking to the Lord. That's how you do it, right? How do I transform everything I'm perceiving and feeling right now? I look to the Lord. When there's no refuge that I can see, I look to the Lord. You are my refuge. That's a cry of faith, right? You cannot find a refuge, you say? Claim him as your refuge. That's an act of faith. And in that faith, you recognize him to be everything you need. You are my portion in the land of the living. You know what the Old Testament saints would be picturing as he says these words. What had God done for them when he brought them into the land where he would dwell with them? He apportioned the land for them. Here's a place where you can dwell with me. This is your portion. This is your inheritance. And for a godly man in Israel, he loved that inheritance because this was God's gift of his life to him. God gave him the rain. God gave him the crops. God gave him the opportunity to go to Jerusalem and worship him. God gave him the sacrifices. This was life with God and it was beautiful. This was his portion that he had received from God. But all of that, folks, was just the shadow, if you will. It was good, it was right. But it was the shadow of the substance that's revealed in Christ. And so when the believing soul says, you are my portion, what he's really saying is, you, God, you, Jesus Christ, you are the one who fulfills everything I need. You give me life. You are the source of eternal life. Where else can I go? There is nothing I desire beside you. You are my portion in the land of the living. Again, let me go back to the Apostle Paul. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. and be found in him, because the goal is that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead." Folks, when you find yourself as that dispirited, deserted, desolate soul, find the purpose and meaning of your sufferings in identification with Christ. because that's what your life is about. And so then that leads us, with that confidence, it leads us right into petitioning God to bring us out of prison. Attend to my cry, verse six says, for I am brought very low. I am very low. I have been wasted away. I'm the lowest of the low, I'm dust. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. I can't overcome here, Lord. You have to act on my behalf. Bring me out of prison. Bring my soul out of prison. And let me just turn your attention right away here back to Christ. Christ entered into the deepest depths of our condition. Let me ask you today, do you think you've experienced sorrow? Behold and see if there be any sorrow. likened to his sorrow. You don't know sorrow compared to Jesus Christ. You've never experienced anything like the depth of sorrow that he has. He entered into the deepest depths of our condition precisely to bring us out of prison, to set us free, to bring us to God, Folks, when we talk about, even when we confess, and the men yesterday were talking about the Apostles' Creed, right? When we confess, I believe in Jesus Christ, and we say that he was crucified, that he descended to Hades, that he rose again, and that he ascended to glory, you know what we're confessing? He is the one who brings us out of prison. He's conquered it all. He's taken it all. Everything created in this created realm. Everything about it. He's taken it as a man and he's conquered. And he brings as the victor us with him. Bring me out of prison. Bring me to life with God. Why? That I may give thanks. Note this, salvation produces worship. What's the whole goal of this saving work? To give thanks, worship, that God is praised, he's adored, pardon me, publicly, worldwide, that all of creation is united in one harmonious choral dance, to quote another man, of praise to God. And that's where the Psalms are bringing us, by the way. We're going through these laments and we're gonna start seeing not to tip my hat too much here. When we get to the last several Psalms, it's bringing us to that point, right? Bring me out of prison that I may give thanks to your name. As you appeal to God to deliver you in times of desolation, what's the point? Why do you want God to do that? Just so I can get out of the pain? I don't like this situation I'm in, God, and I can't do anything about it. You've got to fix it because I don't like this. That's not the godly man's perspective, is it? That's not a mind transformed through suffering to enter into Christ's sufferings. Why did Christ himself go through that suffering? Pardon me. To bring all things together to worship God. That's what you want. That's what you're after. You want God to deliver you so that you can give thanks. And that leads right then to the conclusion of this psalm, a triumphant conclusion, really of confidence in what God will do. The psalm is sung, chanted, spoken, meditated on from the perspective of this hasn't yet arrived, but it's coming. I'm confident in this. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me. We have joy in the community of the righteous as the conclusion of this psalm. Joy in the community of the righteous. Now, again, if you've got correctly your picture of Old Testament worship, this is why you need to be thinking about Leviticus here before you read the Psalms. When God brought deliverance, and say to somebody like the life of David, and he thanked the Lord for that, what did he want to do to express that? He brought a thank offering. He came to the temple, the tabernacle, later the temple, publicly worshiped God, in the congregation of the righteous so that God was praised and the whole world knows God is working salvation. God is accomplishing his purposes. God brings his people together to worship him. If he doesn't, we're cut off from him and his people. We're cut off by our enemies. We're in that prison. No. Bring me out of prison so I can give thanks. The righteous will surround me. I will be back in the midst of the righteous. So look at where this psalm has come from. All the way from, you might say, the picture of a soul in hand-to-hand combat with his enemies, entirely surrounded and entirely deserted, having nowhere to turn. And yet, does that mean the end of him? Now he's been delivered. Now he's back with those he loves. Now he's back in the community of the righteous. Now he's enjoying God's blessing and God's presence. God has blessed, he's provided, and we are rejoicing together in him. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me. Is that your heartbeat when you are dispirited, when you are desolate, when you are deserted? Is it, I look forward to the time when God will bring me back together with his people to praise his name? because he's accomplishing salvation in the midst of the earth, in the land of the living. Think of just a little foretaste of this in the life of the apostle Peter, right after Jesus was crucified, after he ascended to glory, the apostles do what Christ tells them, they start preaching, proclaiming Christ, and it provokes a reaction from the world. They start reaching out to oppose Christ and his missionaries. Peter is put into prison. What did the people of God do? They united in prayer. They said, God, please work on behalf of your servant, behalf of your people, ultimately your servant Jesus. The world is raging against your servant Jesus. So accomplish salvation. God sent an angel and a very almost, you might say, literal kind of fulfillment. He brought Peter out of prison. And he went right to the righteous, right? The community of the faithful who would then praise God, God be thanked, right? He's accomplished salvation here. He is providing for his people to accomplish his mission. And that was, folks, was just a little foretaste. Ultimately, this is going to be fulfilled as Jesus Christ himself has made clear by being our forerunner in that great assembly in glory. This is going to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Why did Jesus go through the suffering himself? to bring many sons to glory, to bring a whole worshiping throng from every tribe and tongue and kindred and nation, to be around the throne together to worship God. This is what his sufferings accomplished, and you can enter into that very same thing. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me. Let me just close with this exhortation. pardon me, I want to return to the larger picture we were looking at earlier in which we set this psalm. Because I think you can see just one example here of how the psalms transform our vision. I would urge you not to let the world system in any of its manifestations set the terms for how you understand the workings of your own soul in relationship to God. Remember we said we're seeing here how faith, hope, and love work in a desolate soul in relationship to God. It's not, for example, just to take the example of, say, psychology. I mean, where did that get its name, right? Soul, dealing with that dimension of man. It's not that psychologists do not observe actual events or patterns in people's lives. And they do, and of course I'm talking about those unbelieving here. But it is rather that they are never able to understand those events or those patterns that they observe in our lives in a coherent way that matches with the truth as it is in Jesus. You see, when we don't acknowledge from the outset that the deepest truth of the human soul is defined by his relationship to God, that's what makes you who you are, then you've already missed the flight. I mean, you are living souls made in the image of God. It's the presence of God that makes you what you are. And if you don't deal with your relationship with God, you don't understand the workings of the soul. You don't understand anything properly. In everything you experience as a living soul, it is your relationship with God that is the basic issue, always, always. And God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the God-man, both makes God known to us and makes ourselves known to us as the true man. He is the last Adam, the true image of God, fully filled with the spirit of God. You can't understand humanity. You cannot understand yourself if you do not know Jesus. You can't understand sufferings if you don't know Jesus. So when you are in the condition of the dispirited, deserted, and the desolate soul, I would urge you today, pray the Psalms, sing the Psalms. They will help you to know yourself. And more importantly, they're going to guide you to true communion with God. Your cry is gonna become less and less focused on yourself, even as it is the true cry of your heart and what you're experiencing, but it becomes more and more the voice of the bride of Christ, entering into the sufferings of her bridegroom. It becomes more and more the voice of the body of Christ, filling up the afflictions of Christ as she groans and waits for revelation of who she is in Christ. The Apostle Paul in his very last writings experienced this very truth. I mean, some of the very last words we have from his pen are along the same order. He appealed to Timothy to come to him soon He said Demas had forsaken him, having loved this present world. Others were gone from his life because they were doing the work of Christ in other places. But then he says this, at my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. But. The Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Folks, this psalm, if you're reading it rightly with eyes to see, is not merely meant to give you a technique for how to cope with feeling lonely or feeling deserted. It transforms your loneliness and weakness into participation in Christ's suffering and His triumph in faith, hope, and love. If that's your conviction and your commitment today, would you confess your faith in Jesus Christ? Let's do it together with the words of Scripture the Lord has given to us. You'll see them in the bulletin if you need them. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory, Jesus is Lord.