So did you have to wait on something this week? Had to wait on something somewhere? You were coffee, tea Punch. Did you have to wait on God, Oh or Vizzini. Did you have to wait on the repairman? Did you have to rate on the text from your bestie? Maybe you had to wait on the instant replay game in the middle of your game, favorite game yesterday or or maybe you had to wait in the funnel cake line and the corn dog line and whatever other line you were in that state fair. My guess is all of us had to wait on something this week at one time or another. I saw a story about a man that was waiting at a train station and the Porter of the station came out and put a sign up and the sign said 30 minute delay. The man said, hey, what's going on with the train? What happened? He goes, well, the train slipped off the rails and it's going to take a few hours to to get it back on. A man said, Well, why in the world did you put up a sign that only said 30 minute delay? The Porter said, Well, it was the only sign we had never been there. You're, you're, you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting for a sign, You're waiting for a message. And then the message comes and it's not the message. You need, it's not the message that you want. You might feel that way at the end of the sermon. I don't know. You know, We continue our series today, rope of hope where we are journeying through psalm 42 looking for the kind of hope that we can hold onto no matter what happens in life. And today our sermon is waiting for hope and hopefully we're going to discover what it means to always find the message you need, no matter what's happening at any particular moment of your life. Let me repeat that what we're going to look at in psalm 42 verse five. Today is a message that you will always need and always be able to hold onto no matter what is happening in your life. So let's find out what that message is. So I'm 42 verse five, the psalmist writes, why are you in despair? My soul. Someone may say, why, why am I in despair? Will the bill from the hospital is do. That's that's why I'm in despair. I'm I'm in despair because I've got midterm exams this week, I'm in despair because my spouse is being a jerk or a jerk it whichever one applies. I'm in despair because my parents are being impossible. I'm in despair because my kids won't listen to anything that I tell them to do. I'm in despair because I'm exhausted at work. My job is wearing me out. I'm in despair because I can't sleep. I'm in despair because someone I love is no longer with me. I'm in despair because every time I go to the doctor, it's never good news and we have a lot of reasons to be in despair, right? There's a lot of moments in life and a lot of situations in life where we find despair. But I love that the psalmist is having this conversation with himself. Do you talk to yourself? You need to okay, if you don't you need to know I'm not talking about, you know, being really strange and traffic. You know, I'm talking about like talking to yourself about the nitty gritty things in life when things are falling apart. Speaking to your heart. Speaking to your mind, speaking to your attitude, that's what the psalmist is doing. He's he's talking to himself in the middle of his despair. He's saying soul, what's what's wrong with you? What, what's going on? He's doing heart surgery in this moment. He's asking himself what's what's happening you may say, I don't know, talking to yourself just sounds weird. But look, if you will start talking to yourself, you won't be the first and you won't be the last to do it. Especially the first or last christian the Apostle paul was writing about his mission trip to Asia. This journey that he went on to spread the gospel where the gospel had not been. And there's this moment where he's writing about it in second Corinthians 18 and he says this we were burdened excessively beyond our strength. So that we even despaired of life. He thought he was going to die his despair was I think I'm getting ready to die. I had someone text me this morning, a an old quote that's been attributed to a man that was known in Count Count Zinzan Dorf, and the quote is preached the Gospel die and be forgotten. It's it sounds crazy, but this is fantastic, because what it means is I don't matter, and this church doesn't matter if I'm not preaching the Gospel and this church doesn't preach the Gospel, I can be forgotten, I will be forgotten and the church can be forgotten and it will be forgotten to some degree, but the Gospel will never be forgot, forgotten. And that is fantastic news. And paul knew that paul was going to a place to preach the Gospel, and his despair was I might die out there. But you know what? The Gospel won't die. He was in despair of life, but the Gospel was never going to die anywhere. That seed was planted. So, in a sense, paul is despairing of death, because he's telling people about jesus, just to hurt our feelings a little bit. How many of us have been in a moment where we despaired of our life, because we were talking about jesus, let me answer for us, hardly any of us, right? We we live in a very comfortable quote, unquote christian world, but paul was in despair. Now, paul was known for talking about himself in the third person. Okay, so I'm confident that paul talked to himself too. I'm confident that in his moments of despair, he would say exactly what the psalmist is saying. What what's wrong? What's so what's going on with you? What's what's happening with your soul? Listen, if you don't talk to yourself, please start, please talk to yourself. Please, please start saying, hey soul, what's wrong? What's what's going on? The psalmist continues talking to himself in verse five. Next, he says this and why are you restless within me? Why am I restless? I'm restless because the hospital bills do. I'm restless because I've midterm exams this week. I'm I'm restless because my spouse is being a jerk or a jerk. Ed, I'm I'm restless because my parents are being impossible. I'm restless because my kids won't listen to anything. I'm restless because my job is exhausting me. I'm restless because I've lost someone that I loved. I'm I'm restless because every time I go to the doctor, it's never good news. We have plenty of things to be restless over. Right? We have plenty of things that that create a restless sense of despair and our hearts and our minds and our souls. What kind of sleeper are you do? You have trouble falling asleep? I don't have trouble falling asleep. When when I mean when I'm down, I'm out like in seconds. I'm just gone. But sometimes getting to that point is hard, my brain won't turn off. I just have all of these things. It's not necessarily worry or fear or or despair restlessness. It's just that it is restlessness, it's just I can't turn it off. You know, I'm thinking about my family, I'm thinking about the church and I'm thinking about some of these very difficult counseling situations that I find myself in every day and and my mind just won't shut off. I mean, I've tried it all too right. I mean, I'll count the sheep and you know, and I've I've tried the uh the the ocean wave machine thing. I've I've even read Malcolm, Merriweather's guide to Gracious living. If you ever watched Andy Griffith, you'll know who I'm talking about. But I've tried it all, I've done it all, but but I just sometimes can't get my mind to shut down. You ever been there, you ever ever been so restless in your mind, you just like, it's it's just not shutting down and maybe it's not when you go to sleep. You know, maybe it's in the middle of the day, you know, maybe it's sitting there eating your salad, you just there's that restlessness in your mind and heart, the Somis, he's he's restless, you know, he he's restless, he's in despair. He can't can't quite pull it together. He's not looking at everything in life is ah yeah, it's just how it is. No, there's something about what's happening in his life that's creating this sense of despair and restlessness that he's having to talk to himself. Hey, what's going on? Hey, soul. What's, what's happening in your heart? Why are you restless? But he has an answer for this restless despair. Look what he says next. Wait for God. Why are you, why are you in despair? Why are you restless? And then he, he talks back to himself, He preaches to himself. Hey, wait on God. Someone may say, wait on God. Gosh, that's all I'm doing. All I'm doing is waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. But I'm, I'm not getting that sign. I'm not getting that message. Nothing's coming through. Nothing's happening. Listen, that's never true. It's, it's never true, John Piper put it this way, God is always doing 10,000 things in your life and you may be aware of three of them. In other words, in the moment that you feel like nothing is happening. There is always something happening. What? Here's what's happening. God is being God. He, he never stops being God. He never quits being God King. David was not just a politician or a pastor or a coach. He was a king of millions of people and his reign was coming to an end. He was very near death and he stood up in front of the whole assembly of the church, all the assembly of the people and he prayed a prayer and this is what the powerful king prayed First chronicles 29 11 yours. Lord is the greatness, The power, the glory, the victory and the majesty? This is the king? The king is saying, it's yours, Lord, not mine. I'm super powerful. I have millions of people that I reign over. But it's not my power. Yours is the power God, yours is the glory, Yours is the majesty. And his prayer continued. Indeed everything that is in the heavens and on the earth, all of it Lord. And he says this yours is the Dominion. Your slower. Doesn't matter who is ever king. Queen, President, coach, Pastor, anything else in the universe? The Dominion belongs to the Lord. There's never a moment that God is not full own in power and authority. There's never a millisecond that God's majesty is not in full gear. And here's why that matters because the majesty and the power and the glory and the Dominion of God in no way fades because your hospital bills do because your spouse is being a jerk or jerk at because your parents are being impossible because your kids don't do anything you tell them to do or because you're exhausted at work or because you have midterm exams or or because you have someone that you love that is lost or because the doctor never has any good news. The Dominion of God never changes. No matter what's happening in our world. The majesty of God never changes. No matter what's happening in our world. So why does that matter for all of those moments, 160 years ago at a church service near the coast of south Carolina. At the very end of the service a prayer was prayed. I usually bring this prayer out about once a year in a sermon, because it just is always great to hear. This is how that prayer went. Look up God, your redeemer and deliverer reigns. Suns and systems of light are but the sparkling dust beneath his feet. Infinite empire is in his grasp. See, see he comes riding upon the wings of the whirlwind, wielding his glittering sword, bathed in the radiance of heaven, driving his foes like chaff before his face hastening to the help of his saints with resources of boundless power and unlimited grace, see, he sits on yonder throne, that's a good prayer. See, he sits on yonder throne. That's why the Somis is waiting for the Lord and hoping in the Lord and trusting in the Lord, he understands this is not wishful thinking. He is not pledging his allegiance to a politician or a political party, or a pastor or a denomination or a church or a coach or anything else. His passionate desire is to wait for God to hope in God because he knows he can trust God. Why? Because when every king and every queen and every president and every army and every country and every nation is no more and they will all be no more, God will be, he sits on yonder throne and nothing will ever change. That. That matters when the hospital bill comes. That matters when family and work and church and health and life is hard. God sitting on his throne his Dominion, it matters day in and day out. The Dominion of God matters because this same God with infinite empire in his grass loved you so much that he sent his only begotten son to absorb the penalty of sin, to die for the price of sin. This same God did that. So if you are believing in and trusting in and relying on and clinging to jesus, that means that God is always working while you're waiting. God is always working while you're waiting. How what's what's he doing? Well again, 10,000 things and we usually see three but here's one you can be confident in, Jesus said it this way in John Chapter 14, I am going there to prepare a place for you. He's talking to his closest friends. He's like guys, here's how the math works. I'm going to prepare a place for you and he continues, I'm coming again and I will take you to myself so that where I am there, you also will be. We hope in God, we wait for God, we trust God because he so loved us that he sent jesus and jesus because of what he is doing right now brings hope and confidence to every single second of a believer's life, the work of Jesus Christ is astounding every moment in your life. He is always preparing a place for you. He is always coming again. I've had a number of friends and acquaintances this week that have found themselves in very difficult, hard situations and I've I've done my best to try to encourage them as best I could and and one of those ways was to to share these following words from Charles Spurgeon with a few people. This is what Spurgeon said about God, he is loving you. Now the great father is looking down upon you with infinite delight and boundless affection at this instant. If you're a believer that never changes at this instant, God is showing and giving pouring out affection on you, he's loving you at this instance. I don't know how long you're going to have to wait. I don't know, I don't know what your situation is. I know some of your situations, I don't know how long you're going to have to wait. I don't I don't know how long it's going to be before you get the sign and the message that you're looking for. But I do know that no matter what you're facing, you have every reason to hope in God why because of what christ has done and because of what he's done through christ and because of what jesus is doing for you right now. Dear christian in this instant. Right now, God is loving you because you've been rescued, you've been redeemed and Jesus is preparing a place for you, He is coming again so that you will be where he is forever. So dear christian Godis loving you in this instant because of what Jesus has done and dear non christian Godis loving you in this instant because you have not breathed your last breath so you can be rescued, you can be redeemed, you can turn to jesus, you can be a part of this math where he's preparing a place for you and that one day you can be where he is forever. See this is is not a fairy tale that we've come to talk about today, the birth and life and death and resurrection and and promise coming of Jesus, christ proves all the things about God to be true and gives us every reason to wait for God to hope in God to trust in God Somis, he was overwhelmed with despair, he was overwhelmed with, with restlessness, but he's talking to himself, he's, he's preaching to himself, he's, he's trying to to do something in his mind to reorient him and what he's telling himself is, hey, I know it feels like everything's falling apart, but wait for God, hope in God and why why would he be telling himself that? Look at the next part of verse five for I will again, praise him, I love this, he, he knows he's going to praise God again. It's it's going to happen. He's going to recover. In fact, in a sense, he's already recovering. See the reality is in the moment that everything begins to fall apart. That's almost when our recovery begins. You know why? Because in that moment where everything falls apart, we suddenly remember, oh, I need God. You see, when everything's comfortable, we kind of forget our need for God. We we kind of just not on purpose, but we just kind of take for granted the grace and mercy that we're receiving every day. But but when everything falls apart in our moment of restless despair, no matter how old we are, we go, oh, wait a minute, I can't just go to the bank and fix this problem. Oh, wait a minute. I can't just pull myself up by my bootstraps, I'm not self sufficient, I'm going to die one day. I'm in need of God, I can't do this on my own. That's what happens in a moment of restless despair, we began to become needy. And if you aren't needy, then you may not be a christian because christians are needy. We need God desperately. Every moment of every day when despair comes, it is it is the anchor of Jesus Christ that reminds us, oh wait a minute, I have a living hope. My confidence right now can change. It's it's destroyed in this moment because I'm in despair. I'm I'm restless. So my my confidence feels destroyed it. It feels hopeless. But he's preparing a place for me and I can't forget that. I can't I can't let that leave my mind. And if jesus is preparing a place for you, dear christian, no one is going to outbid you for that place, it's yours. It's it's purchased by him. It's built by him. You've been dearly loved and dearly prized by God. In that place is dearly owned by jesus for you. That can't change. I don't know what that means really? I don't know what it looks like. I know the bible's language isn't that I have a mansion down the road somewhere far away from jesus, the bible's languages. I got a room in his mansion, I'm there, I'm close to him, so I don't know exactly what all of it means. But I do know this that jesus died and rose from the grave to guarantee that my place is real. He's risen to guarantee that this is not a fairy tale. But you know what we're going to have moments where we don't want to praise God, we will, we're going to have moments where we don't want to hear a bible verse. We don't want to sing a hymn. We don't we don't want to hear your your catchy christian quote, We're going to have moments like that. Maybe you're having a moment like that today where you're not feeling God for lack of a better word. But part of what it means to be a christian is that time will pass, Part of what it means to be a christian is that will hopefully pass super fast and that we will find ourselves our hearts will will break free from those chains of restless despair and and we'll begin to praise again. And how do we know that's true? How does the psalmist know that he's going to praise God again? Look what he says the last part of Verse five for the help of his presence. My God, he he knew he would praise God again because he understood the presence of God, he had been in the presence of God. Now let me let us off the hook for a second. The presence of God is not always something that you feel in a tambourine church service. Okay, the presence of God is is not always you know, clouds and lightnings up on top of a mountain. Now, sometimes the presence of God is you sitting in the waiting room at the er and you're saying to yourself the Lord really is my shepherd. Sometimes the presence of God is you standing in a cemetery at a funeral service and and you begin to preach to yourself, he's preparing a place for me for me. Sometimes the presence of God is you sitting in your car in the parking lot after you just lost your job and saying to your soul, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed and honored to be exhausted Is the name of the Lord? And how can you say that those things are true? How how is the psalmist saying that in the middle of his restless despair that he's going to praise God again? Because he understands the presence of God. How do we know that we have the presence of God? Well, notice the last two words he says, my God, not my parents, God, not my grandparents. God, not my youth leaders, God. Or or the family life ministers, God? Or the Children's ministers? God not the pastor's God, not Billy Graham's God. My God thomas is not confused here. My God, he understood the presence of God because God was his God. Sure, same God for all those other people. But it's his God. It really it's his shepherd. The Lord. Really? Really, really was his shepherd? Can you say that today not? Do you believe in God not? Do you believe in jesus not? Do you believe in the bible not? Do you believe in the church? But is God the one true God? Is he your God? When you are full of restless despair and you don't feel like worshiping God? Is God your God? Not perfectly because none of us are perfect. But when you're watching the news, when you're listening to talk radio, when you're at a football game? When you're at the doctor's office when your spouse is being a jerk or a jerk at when the kids don't listen when your parents are being impossible and all the hard moments of life. Is there something in you that says, see he sits on yonder throne. Does that does that creep up somewhere from your heart and mind? It needs to, it really needs to because look, I I don't know how long you're going to have to wait. I don't I don't know how how long your despair will last. I don't know how long the restlessness will feel. I don't know when the misery will pass or when the darkness will lift or or when you're going to praise him again. But I do know this beyond any shadow of a doubt. There's no magic calendar to put that on the mark. But I know that right now you have every reason to wait on God. You have every reason to hope in God. You have every reason to trust in God psalmist. This wasn't a one time sermon. It wasn't just a one time message. He was telling him himself this over and over again. He didn't know when his despair was going to list. He he didn't know when, when the restlessness was going to disappear, but he knew it would he wasn't there yet. But he knew he'd be there. He knew one day he would fully be there. He knew one day the darkness was going to live and the despair was going to disappear. He knew it was going to happen, he knew he would be delivered completely. Even if he wasn't delivered temporarily. And until that day he was going to wait on God, he was going to hope in God and he was going to trust God. Why? Because God's written truth had become powerful to him. This wasn't a fairytale folklore legend here he he saw the written truth of God and it was real. He knew the eyewitness testimonies of millions of people who had seen the hand of God. He had his own experience with the one true living god. He had the power of the spirit of God stirring him towards all of these truths. But particularly one truth, one truth that he knew he could hang on to no matter what happened in life. And it wasn't just the truth for him. It's a truth for me and it's the truth for you. And what is that truth? It's simply this every single second of every single moment. The good, the bad, the happy, the sad, the hard, the difficult, the despair, the delightful, the restless, the reeling all the moments, this one truth never changes. And you can hang onto it, see he sits on yonder, build your life. Oh, man,