So do you have a fight song? A take back your life song? Uh let everybody know that you're all right song. You you got got one of those uh the first college fight song documented at least appeared in 18 85 137 years ago. It was written by T. J. Hurley. And it was for boston college. And the name of the song that he wrote was for boston. Not a lot of creativity here, but for boston it was a it was a fight song, cheer song for boston. Now I went looking through Wikipedia at the list of all the other fight songs and I found something very interesting. Not all those songs sound like they were written for boston or for the schools that sound like they were just written for for other people here. Here's just a few examples. Barry University, their fight song is go barry go Now. Can you imagine if you went to Barry University and your name was barry, everybody would be cheering for you all the time. You know, just thousands of people go barry go bucknell University. Their fight song is Ray Bucknell Ray, the guy that sat next to in biology. He's got a whole song just for him. That that's their fight song. Actually it stands for hooray bucknell Cornell University. Give my regards to Davy and the rest of you can just take a hike. Right? Just just Davey. Davey is the only one that gets any regards, Nobody else is going to get any regards Purdue university in fort wayne. Their fight song is go dawns. So if your name's not done, just just go away. You know, only the dons are supposed to go, but my favorite was Southeastern Louisiana University. Their fight song is this cheer our team. Just just do it. You know, just just do it. Just cheer our team. That's that's the whole the whole song the whole title. Now, here's the thing though. Sometimes when your team's not doing well, you don't want to cheer right? You don't care about the fight song, but that's not just for our favorite team. Sometimes in life it's hard for us to cheer. We we do lose our fight song. We're we're having a hard time and we don't we don't want to sing at all. So what do we do then? What what do we do in those moments of despair? We continue our series rope of hope where we're walking through psalm 42 what we're doing is is looking at the truth of psalm 42 in such a way that we would find something to hold onto or we could even say something that's going to hold on to us no matter what we face in life. On today's message is singing for hope. Singing for hope and the psalmist is going to hopefully help us find our fight song. Our cheer song for our soul psalm 42 verse eight. The psalmist says the Lord will send his goodness in the daytime, I think I've shared before many years ago, my realtor friend scott said, if you're looking to buy a house, just remember to go by the house at night to you know, go go look at the house at night if you can or at least ride through the neighborhood at night because the neighborhood and the house are going to feel feel different in the dark. They just are, you know, there there's something about the daytime that makes everything feel better and look better and feel nice. Everybody's at work or at school during the daytime, so the neighborhood's quiet, but but go back at night, you know, just to get a feel for the sounds and and who's there and what's happening in a similar way that the psalmist seems to be saying, you know what, when my life is falling apart, when everything is really, really bad, when I have despair and discouragement, you know that the days are okay. You know, I can hang in there some through the days, I I can see the goodness of God during the daytime. But you may say, well, how how can I see the goodness of God during the day, when everything is terrible when I'm at the hospital and everything's falling apart. How can I see the goodness of God when I'm at work or at school and everything's going terrible. How can I see the goodness of God. Well, let's let's just see just a few practical ways alright. I want I want you to do something with me. Everybody take your hand, just put your hand right in front of your face. You can do it. It's all right. And I'm not going to trick you. All right now. I just want you to blow on your hand. You just blew the goodness of God right there in your life. You exist. You've been fearfully and wonderfully made you are a person alive in this world. Boom. Immediately. You just experienced the goodness of God. Maybe that's oversimplified, but it's true. You don't have to raise your hand on this one. But but how many of you went to high school? How many of you went to high school? Well if you did, then you have more privilege and more blessings than about 2.8 billion people. Statistics show that over the last couple of years, that's how many people never made it past the eighth grade. And that's now, I can't imagine that it would have been much higher. I think I would have it would have been much higher maybe 20, years ago. So if you've made it past the 8th grade, you've experienced the goodness of God. That's a practical thing in your life. How much do you make an hour? What's your weekly or bi weekly salary? How much Social Security do you get every month? Well, the estimation is that there's 780 million people in the world that live on less than $2 a day, less than $2 just to give that some perspective, there's about 331 million people in the United States. So if you double that and add another 118 million people, that's how many people live an entire day on less than what we pay for a mocha frappuccino. Just just one. Okay, so so this picture is a very real picture of the goodness of God, even just with material things and most of our lives Now, somebody might say, well 780 million people that are living with with less than $2 a day. That just means there's a lot of lazy people who won't go work. All right, well here's the rub of that statistic. 356 million of the 780 million are Children. Somebody may say, well that just means that they've got a bunch of deadbeat parents, a bunch of lazy parents that they won't go and work and they shouldn't have them kids. To begin with. C here's the beauty of being a christian. The beauty of being a christian is that when you hear there's 356 million Children that are living on less than $2 a day, You don't say lazy parents, you know, they should have been born now you say for whatever reason those Children exist, they've been fearfully and wonderfully made by God and then you go and because I'm a follower of jesus, I remind myself that jesus said, let the little Children rich and poor come to me for such is the Kingdom of God. How many of you have a car? How many of you have a job? How many of you own a house or rent a house? How many of you have a savings account? How many of you have had more than one piece of bacon this week? You know why? Because one of my middle school guys, his mom sent a whole box of bacon with him this weekend, bless that family. Look, I promise, I'm not trying to use all these statistics to pass out tickets for a guilt trip. Okay, Really? But it it's good and helpful for us to remember that on our worst days when everything is wrong, when everything feels bad. Listen, when the Red States and the Blue States are messing with the states of our minds, no matter what's happening in the universe, there is always the ability to see the goodness of God. You can't miss the goodness of God. It is all around us. And the Somis is writing this because he's overwhelmed with everything happening in his life. He's full of anger or fear, Some type of despair and he's writing because he's trying to build up his fight song, he's trying to remember it or find it for the first time and the first thing he's writing is, hey, you know what if I'm writing a fight song, I need to remind myself that that I've had the goodness of God in my life today. The goodness of God is all around me. There there are waves and waves and and mountains and mountains of the Goodness of God all around each one of us. Right now, the psalmist gets that. He's saying I've experienced the goodness of God today. I've experienced the common grace of God today. But let's be honest, sometimes we don't feel that way. Right. I mean, the goodness of God is not what's crossing our mind. We were struggling. We're not seeing that common grace. So what do we do? How do we how do we move past that? Well, King David said this in Psalm 34 verse eight taste. And see that the Lord is good. That sounds very poetic sounds great. Sounds like a nice bible verse. What does it mean? You know, how do you how do you taste? And and see that that God is good. How do you do that? Well, Peter helps us in the new testament First. Peter chapter two verse two he says like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word. So that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. So the way we taste and see that God is good is by longing for the pure milk of the word. All right. Once again, bud, you lost me. We're just talking bible words here. What are you talking about? Well, we taste and see that the Lord is good by longing for the pure milk of the word and the pure milk of the word is the truth that God gives us in the bible. The bible is not a book of fairy tales. It's God's truth. It's God his kindness to us to give us things that we can constantly look at. So if you're struggling in the daytime to see the goodness of God, if you're having a hard time finding the goodness of God in the daytime, then engage with the bible, get a physical bible and open it up and and read from it. Or if you don't have a physical bible with you, make sure you have a bible app on your phone and and let someone else just read the bible to you. Maybe one verse or two verses or even more. Maybe make a friendship with somebody and start reading the bible together. I know some of our our middle schoolers and our high schoolers have started doing that. They're they're reading through the bible together. Maybe you have a friend or maybe your family can just start finding a time where you're reading the bible together. Read the bible to your kids, grandparents, grandparents, grandparents don't just buy your grandkids ice cream. Read the bible with them. Read the bible to them, encourage them towards towards the Lord. You have such a privilege. We listen to you. So take advantage of the authority that you have in the life of your family and pour the gospel the love of jesus into your family or maybe go to a nursing home, go to a memory care facility. Read the bible to people who can't read the bible, but but find a way to engage with the truth of God because here's what you'll find the goodness of God. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. That that's what the psalmist is realizing the goodness of God. It's it's everywhere and the bible helps us see that there's a song out by Tobymac and blessing offer. Um and and it's a it's a really good song. It's called the goodness and and the bad thing about a really good christian song is Bless their Hearts. But the christian radio stations take a really, really good christian song and they play it over and over and over again. Um and this is one of those, it just gets played too much. But it's a great song. It's a fantastic song blessing he became completely blind when he was 10 years old. And so the way they construct the bridge of the song is just fantastic. So when the bridge of the song comes Tobymac says through the good and the bad and the ugly. I can still see the sun shine above me, still see it and then blessings lime is this, he says through the good and the bad and the ugly, I can still feel the sun shine above me. In other words, whether you can see or whether you can't see whether you're having a good day or a terrible day, the goodness of God is there, it didn't disappear. Whatever we're experiencing, the goodness of God is still right there in the middle of everything that we're going through those waves and those waves, those mountains and those mountains, they are still there, no matter what's happening. And that's the glory of how God uses the bible. Someone said that when life has fallen apart, when when everything's bad, when when you feel like whatever you know about the goodness of God is is draining out a bucket out of a bucket as fast as it can. There's something about the bible and reading the bible and hearing the bible. The truth of the bible that does something to our hearts and our minds and souls and and this is what they said. It does. It reminds us that God is for us. That's what the bible does. It reminds us that God is for us. But how how can the bible give us confidence that that God is for us? Well, here's how, because the bible tells us the truth about jesus, that the bible gives us the truth about jesus and the truth about jesus is the greatest goodness in the universe, what Jesus has done, who Jesus is is the greatest news in the universe. So the goodness of God reminds us that God is for us today because if you are a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, he is your rescuer, he is your redeemer. And Jesus himself is always the reason that God is for you right now, Jesus is always the reason that God is for you today. When the world feels against you, when your spouse feels against you, When your kids feel against you, when your boss feels against you, when when everything in the world feels like it is against you, God is never against you because of Jesus, Jesus means God always for you, always for you, William cooper spent most of his life, a good portion of his life in severe depression, but he wrote some amazing hymns when he had his moments of being able to see and feel the gospel very clearly. One of those is a great old him that has this line, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. I love this him because it repeats that when you sing it, lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains and then it keeps going and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. It's not just a song, it's it's fight song, it's it's it's a cheer song because if you're a christian when you feel completely overwhelmed and full of despair, you look to jesus, you worship jesus and you remember, wait a minute I've lost all stain and guilt of my sin because of jesus. So no matter what's happening right now, God is for me because of jesus, God is deeply and delightfully and eternally for me because of jesus. That's what the psalmist is doing. He's like, wait a minute, God's for me, God is my savior, He's my redeemer. I I see his goodness all around me every day, but not just during the day, look at the next part of our state and his song will be with me in the night. I've never slept a whole lot my whole life. I'm a four or five hour guy, maybe a little more. And, and this was true right after I got out of college and I was at my, my first church in Arkansas, I was always up to two or three o'clock in the morning and and there was a radio station that I would listen to during the night. And there was some guy on there. I don't remember his name, but but he had this radio program where he played some songs and he'd read some scripture and and make some comments and stuff, but the, but the name of the program was song in the night and I'm just assuming it was from this passage, but I remember, you know, I was 21 just turned 21 I just remember there was something comforting in my mind about another guy being up at night like I was and and him just pouring God's truth and just speaking of the truth about God all night long, the Somis, he was finding the truth of God in the night. You know when he couldn't sleep, when he was restless, when when things were difficult, he was finding the truth of God even in the night. Why see if I can illustrate it in a hopefully simple way? Simple, simple. What did I just say? It sounded like sinful. Let's don't use that word. I think I just combined seven words that are not a word. So let me repeat that, let me describe it. And hopefully a simple way. I was sitting in my office earlier this week and I was listening to a a live album of songs from a conference and one of the songs they were singing was Come Now Fount of every blessing and before the worship leader began the song, he he read from revelation five and then he made a comment. So I want to read what he read. Um it's a long, long passage, but that's alright, hang in there with me and then I'm going to share what he shared revelation chapter five. Then I looked and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the number of them was Myriads of Myriads and thousands of thousands. We're just one church. We're never alone Big God, Big Kingdom, Big Heaven, big eternity. And they were saying with a loud voice worthy is the lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every created thing which is in heaven or on the earth or under the earth or on the sea and all things in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory and the Dominion forever and ever. Not for the next two years, not for the next four years, King jesus reign is forever and ever and that's who we follow. And then john wrote this and the four living creatures were saying, hey men a meant all of this and the elders fell down and worshiped and so right before he led the song, he read that and then he said this, we may just be starting our song this morning, but there's one that's already been going on and we want to join in. Listen, that's stunningly great news because when we're overwhelmed with despair when we can't find our fight song or our cheer song, when it's not there. No, this, there's already a song being sung. The song is, is already being sung and get this Myriads and Myriads and thousands and thousands of angels are inviting us constantly to join the song. But you may say, man, I have some days, I can't even hear the invitation. I can't even I can't even respond to the invitation. I'm so full of stress and despair and worry and anger about everything that's happening in the world. Everything that's happened in my life. I just I can't even sing with them take comfort in that because you know what? When you can't sing, the song is still going that that song, it's actually not dependent on me and that song is not dependent on you and that should be gigantic comfort to us because the glory of God cannot be silenced because you're having a bad day. And the glory of God cannot be silenced because you're having a restless night. The glory of God fills the earth. The glory of God fills the heavens. The glory of God fills everything. It was that way before any of us were born. It will be that way when we're all dead. The glory of God fills the earth. And that means the song is always going. His goodness is always there. His greatness is always there. His glory is always there. That means his glory is not dependent on our vote. His glory is not dependent on our opinion. His glory is not dependent on our singing or our church or our money. His glory is full and free and powerful and commanding 24 hours a day seven days a week for the next 10,000 years to infinity and beyond this is our God. This is the one we sing to. This is the one we pray to. We are not just Baptists and presbyterians and Episcopalians and americans. We are christians, we are followers of Jesus Christ and the glory of God will never be silenced. That is comforting when your life is falling apart and you can't sing and you can't find your song, the song is still being sung and hopefully soon you can join in. Maybe even for the first time, maybe today is the day of your salvation. You know if if you're not a christian, look this this isn't a cult. Okay, it's really not. This is a community of prideful, selfish whining complaining people. Okay, this is a community of sinners. If you don't believe that about yourself, you may not be a christian. Okay, but here's the beauty, The beauty of what it means to know that you are a sinner that's been saved by the goodness and the grace of God is this. You also know that technically you are really now a saint and a saint has this wonderful confidence that the song that's being sung, it ain't about us ain't nobody in heaven ever going to sing Tao is so great and tao is so good. Let us thank him for our food. No, the beauty as as I heard tammy, I think she shared this with her class Wednesday night. The beauty is not about what we have done, but what he has done and what he is doing. That's the song. The song is is about what he has done. It's about what he is doing. And for saint there's nothing greater. There's nothing greater for them for us to consider the beauty of what God has done. The beauty of what God has accomplished in our life. And here's why we love that as saints of God. While we love that as as followers of jesus, because no matter what happens, there is one solid truth that can never be changed, no matter who gets elected, no matter what the doctor says, no matter what's left in the checking account, there's this one truth for a believer that can never be removed. And here's that truth. Zephyr 93 17. I'm I'm going to read it from the amplified bible, but I really just want you to get the last part. But but here's how it reads. The Lord. Your God is in the midst of you. He had God, God didn't like take a vacation this past week, you know. And I can promise you, God is not worried about anything that he's seen on CNN Fox News or MSNBC this week. Okay, he's good. He's good. The Lord Your God is in the midst of you. A mighty one. A savior who saves he will rejoice over you with joy. He will rest in silent satisfaction and in his love, he will be silent and make no mention of past sins or even recall them? This is part he will exalt over you singing what that means is God is singing over you with great joy. God is singing over you. Why I'm going to give you one of two reasons if you're not a christian in a sense, God is singing over you because he created you and and everything he's created is good. So he's singing over you in a sense, as as his creation. But but in a much deeper way, if you're a follower of jesus, God is singing over you for one unbelievably amazing reason and this is it. You've lost all of your guilty stains, but that's why God singing God's singing because you've received his son, you've you've yielded to jesus, you've received his salvation. You've been transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of light. And so God is rejoicing over you because you're part of his family, you're you're part of his kingdom. And that can't change. Now, someone may be thinking this, you know, my life is really hard right now, I don't give a rip about God singing, You know, that's not going to help me at all. Now that may be how you feel, but it's not true and here's here's how I know it's not true. When was the last time you went to a professional sporting event or maybe you went to a grand kids, you know, local high school football game or something. And almost every event, eventually at some point in time, the loudspeaker will play a song from your past. I don't care how old you are, you know, I don't know why, but most of them are playing 80 songs right now, that's just a thing. I don't get it. But if you go to a professional sport eventually you're going to hear a song, I mean, you may not hear Benny Goodman, sorry, but, but I mean you're going to hear some kind of song that's, that's probably from your generation and what happens when we hear that song? You know, I mean, something happened and even if you don't start moving your heart smiles a little bit, it does, or you're at that wedding reception and then the DJ or the band, they play that, that one, you know, love song and, and, and you just, you know, you tear up a little bit or at the very least your heart smiles a little bit and I don't know too many of us that, that don't listen to God bless the USa or seeing the star spangled banner were a little something, something is not happening inside of us, right? So it really doesn't matter. You know, if it's, if it's Benny Goodman or Barbra Streisand, you know, if it's, you know, cole porter or Conway twitty, if it's, you know, willie nelson or, or you know, Gunnar and Matthew nelson, you know, or or whoever it is that you like to listen to. It doesn't, doesn't matter, no matter who our favorite person is, music does something to us, it just does and if it doesn't sorry, you're just lying, you know, because it does, it does a little something to us. And so the reality is we really know that if we could really embrace that God is singing over us that the God of the universe is is singing over us at the very least is his creation. But even more so because he's given us his son, that's something, you know, it's it's something and because of Jesus Christ, there's this this fight song, this this song that God's singing over you and the power of that song, the power of the song that God's singing over your life. The power of the song that God's singing over your death. The power of the song that God's singing over your soul. It has power and because of Jesus Christ at least one lyric of that song for the believer is this your sins are forgiven, your sins are forgiven, you've lost all the guilty stains, your sins are forgiven. That means God is for you, he's for you, let that be the greatest song of all, let that be our our chief fight song, our chief cheer song, the psalmist, he found comfort for his despair and the goodness of God in the daytime, but he also found comfort for God from God and the goodness of God in the in the night time this song that God was singing over him. You see what he's doing right in the middle of his despair. He's he's writing this stuff down, Hey, you know what? This is my fight song, This is this right here, this is my take back my life song. This right here, this is I'm alright song. Why? Why why is he? All right, Last part of Verse eight, A prayer to the God of my life. Make no mistake. He is saying to himself, this is hard. I don't like this. This is this is painful. It's hurting me. I'm miserable. This darkness feels like it will not go away, but I want this darkness to go away. He's saying that you know, he ain't zippity doo dah. All right, He gets it. This is bad. This is hard. I don't like it. So, he's saying that to himself. But more importantly, he's preaching to himself and what is he preaching to himself? He's saying, hey, you know what? It's dark right now. But this darkness is a temporary address. Darkness is not your destination. This is hard. This is painful. But it won't always be this way. And how did he know that? Well, he knew that because he had discovered And again, you know, maybe this is around 980 BC somewhere around there. So even at that time, everybody had already learned, Yep, you can trust God God's going to fulfill his promises. So what do we have now? Another 2900 years on that? We think God's messed up that somehow he's quit keeping his promises. C the psalmist, the new guy, God keeps his promises. Like he never drops the ball. And and the truth is he said, you know what? Because God is the definition of my life, I'll be right. You know, I don't know when that's going to happen, but this is going to change. This is not my final song, but it didn't always feel that way in the night, does it? But you know, here's the interesting thing. It's usually only in the night, only in the darkness that we actually can really see. The light James Windsor describes it like this. Have you ever noticed that you can see the farthest at night in the daytime, the most distant object you can see is the sun And it's a mirror 93 million miles away. Sounds like it's there. Okay, we can see that. But he goes on. But at night your eye takes in countless stars and Galaxies that are many light years away. Your vision is greatly improved in the darkness. He says this the same is true with depression when you are having bright days of happy sunshine, you can't see too much further than your studies or your sports or your work or your friend or your family or your possessions, a very small world. But in the darkness of depression, you begin to see the glistening, vast expanse of God's love and Jesus Christ. And when you are full of darkness, the love of christ is all you have. And then he says this. And as it turns out, you don't have christ at all until all you have is christ. There's there's no truer statement on that turns out that it doesn't matter if I pray the sinner's prayer. Doesn't matter if I got baptized. Doesn't matter if I went to seminary, doesn't matter if I'm a pastor, if in the dark I don't have jesus, then I don't I don't have him because it's in the darkness that I discover. Oh yeah, he is my savior and my king. Listen, I don't have any quick fix for whatever your problem is right now, I don't anybody that tells you they do is just lying. You know, there's just there's just no quick fixes. I don't have, you know, 10 terrific tips for total transformation from terrible trials and tribulations, you know, don't have it. But I do have something to offer you. I have a have a fight song to offer. You have a have a song of cheer to offer you and really by definition it's it's the ultimate fight song from jesus and here's just one of the lyrics your sins are forgiven. Do you truly have that fight song? If so dear friend, you cannot lose?